30 years after the premiere Santa Claus remains a holiday classic. We all know the story. After accidentally killing Santa Claus, Tim Allen’s Scott Calvin must take his place. Pretty daring start to a children’s film when you think about it. The original film received two sequels, Santa Claus 2 And Santa Claus 3: The Escape Clause. While the first release received mostly positive reviews, critical and audience response declined as the franchise progressed.

Santa Claus 3: The Escape Clause was considered by many to be the weakest of the three. Since a fourth film was never commissioned, it looked like Santa would hang his coat there. But a decade and a half later we visited the world again The Santa Clauses TV series. The show didn’t necessarily receive rave reviews, but was hailed as a welcome return to form for the franchise. Things went so well on Disney+ that a second season was ordered after the first was originally announced as a limited series. Although there is no news about a third season, The show did its job and gave this franchise a more respectable ending. So let’s take a look.

“Santa Claus” trilogy and weak third film

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Release date

November 16, 2022

Seasons

2

As mentioned, Santa Claus The franchise stars Tim Allen as Scott Calvin/Santa Claus. The CEO of a toy company suddenly takes over the reins of Santa Claus after the previous owner falls off the roof. Other cast members include Elizabeth Mitchell, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, David Krumholtz and Judge Reinhold.

In the first film, Scott believes that meeting Santa was a dream. That is, until he spends the rest of the film physically transforming into St. Nick. In a second, Scott realizes he has to find a wife or he’ll lose his Santa gig. In the third and final entry, Scott renounces his position after being tricked into doing so by Jack Frost. Jack replaces Scott, who immediately regrets the decision. He manages to get Frost to give up the job too and is able to reclaim his Santa Claus coat.

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The second film was well received by critics, but the third unmistakably fell into bad territory. Martin Short did his best as Jack Frost, but most reviewers agreed that the plot just rehashed jokes and slapstick from the previous films. The story felt like they were just saying they completed a trilogy. In fact, it took almost an hour for Scott to quit the Santa job. Some reviewers were kinder and said so The escape clause improved over its predecessor. Audiences gave it an average B+ rating, so not too bad. But the overwhelming consensus is this Santa Claus 3 was a cheesy, tired, and overdone sequel to an already “mediocre” franchise.

The TV series “Santa Claus” has corrected the ending

A limited follow-up series entitled will be released in January 2022 The Santa Clauses was ordered for Disney+. The first season follows Scott as he approaches his 65th birthday. With age clearly showing signs of age, Scott plans to retire. Since none of his sons want to take the job, Simon Choksi (Kal Penn) is chosen as the new Santa Claus. However, Simon commercializes Christmas, which leads to Scott not retiring. The second season follows Eric Stonestreet as Mad Santa, a medieval Santa Claus who comes back to life. At the same time, Scott begins training his son Cal so that he can one day succeed him as Santa Claus.

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The Santa Clauses currently sits at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not exactly praised, but far better than the 17% for it Escape clause. The show dialed back some of the films’ cheesier slapstick elements and focused primarily on the Calvin family. That’s what worked so well with the first film, and to some extent the second. Scott was an average father who had to balance his new family with his unexpected new duties as Santa Claus. The franchise suffered from secondary characters and other crazy magic tricks destroying the family unit. However, it couldn’t please everyone as some viewers weren’t fans of the new elves or Kal Penn’s character. But The majority of viewers seemed to think that this series was a faithful throwback to the original film.

Two seasons were released in 2022 and 2023. There were discussions about a third season, but nothing came of it. There may be delays to accommodate cast schedules as Tim Allen is busy working on his new ABC sitcom Changing gears. However, rumors about Allen’s bad behavior on set and the fact that Disney was so quiet are not good signs. If there is an announcement in the next few months, it’s possible a new season could be ready by Christmas. If not, this series at least gave the Calvin/Claus family a better resolution than Martin Short’s cheesy Jack Frost film. All three Santa Claus Films and the TV series can be streamed on Disney+ this holiday season.