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Released
1985 · FILM

Santa Claus

Overburdened Santa must race against time to stop his wayward elf, who’s unknowingly sabotaging a struggling toy company in New York, before the holiday spirit is shattered forever.

“You'd better watch out! This year he REALLY IS coming to town.”

Directed by
Jeannot Szwarc
Written by
David Newman, Leslie Newman
Runtime
108 min
AdventureFamilyFantasy

Synopsis

In ancient times, a man named Claus, who delivers toys in his small village, fulfills his destiny to become Santa Claus after meeting an expert toy-making elf named Patch in the North Pole. In the present day, Santa Claus becomes overwhelmed by his workload, and the disgruntled Patch flees the workshop to New York City. There, Patch unknowingly threatens the fate of Christmas by taking a job at a failing toy company run by a scheming businessman.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 22

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Peter HollywoodShot by Arthur IbbetsonScored by Henry ManciniDesigned by Anthony Pratt

Box Office

1985 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.5× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$23.7M

Budget$50.0M
Worldwide gross$23.7M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $23.7M — 100% of worldwide · International: $553 (0%)

Opening weekend: $5.6M — 24% of its US run.

Peak 970 theaters

Also known as

  • Santa Claus: The Movieen
  • La storia di Babbo Nataleit

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