Bringing back Santa after all these years! Disney+ got the original Santa Clause stars to reprise their roles in the 2022 series The Santa Clauses, 16 years after the final film in the franchise premiered. However, Tim Allen originally had no plans to put on the red suit again.

“My wife kept saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do this again because you were kind of cranky the last time?’ I wasn’t very excited about it,” the actor told J-14 exclusively ahead of the show’s November 2022 premiere. “I didn’t think it was going to happen.”

The Home Improvement alum originated the role of Scott Calvin, who eventually becomes Santa Claus, in 1994. The first movie showed Tim becoming the man in the red suit while the other two focused on various problems up in the North Pole. The Disney+ series marked the fourth time he’s played the role over a 28-year period. With the show, Tim wanted “deeper questions answered” for Santa.

“Or at least, let’s make sure we understand the system of Christmas and what Christmas means,” he explained. “The religious part of it is also the spiritual part of it — and once they [the writers] started getting that, on top of it being a funny family movie, come on. I mean, I said, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’”

Other than Tim, The Santa Clause film series starred Elizabeth Mitchell as the eventual Mrs. Claus and along with Eric Lloyd as Charlie Calvin and David Krumholtz as the fan-favorite Bernard the Elf.

 

All three of them also brought back their characters for the show.

“I was excited. It was a real surprise. It kind of came out of the blue, it felt like. I didn’t even know that anyone was thinking about it, so it was a surprise. Then, the surprise turned into joy,” Elizabeth told J-14 about her return to the North Pole. “I did have that moment of, ‘Gosh, I wonder if I’m going to remember how to play her.’ But she was just waiting. I swear I walked on the set and there she was. So it was beautiful. It was a gift.”

Scroll through our gallery to see what the cast members of The Santa Clause films are doing now. 

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