One has to imagine that if “The Santa Clause” were to see Scott Calvin kill Santa Claus, it would be done in a relatively kid-friendly way. Maybe Calvin would throw a snowball at him, causing him to lose his balance and fall, or perhaps he’d even scale the house and throw the apparent intruder off himself. As it turns out, the minds behind the original draft had something a little less tame in mind. According to Tim Allen himself, “The Santa Clause” nearly featured Calvin shooting Santa off of his roof. “The original script, actually, it was written by two comedians, and I shot Santa in the original script,” Allen revealed during his “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” appearance.
Allen added that he was laughing to the point of tears when he read this version of the scene. This might seem like a rather inappropriate moment for a movie aimed at kids, but it’s not as out there for a Disney production as one might think. As the actor pointed out, the studio has killed characters in brutal ways for decades, so it’s more or less par for the course. Offering further critique, Allen found it odd that the elves in “The Santa Clause” didn’t seem to care about Santa’s death, and that it’s never explained how his Mrs. Claus felt or what became of her after his demise.
If the original version of “The Santa Clause” made it to screen, and audiences witnessed Santa Claus’ death come from a gunshot wound courtesy of Scott Calvin, it’s safe to say the perception of the franchise as a whole would be very, very different.
