With "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride," Jack's back -- sort of.

That's because Burton's longtime collaborator, composer Danny Elfman, is singing on the big screen for yet another stop-motion animated fantasy.

Twelve years ago, Elfman provided the memorable singing voice of Jack Skellington in the classic "The Nightmare Before Christmas." For "Corpse Bride," Elfman has put on his top hat and struts his musicality as Bonejangles, a song-and-dance(dead)man who serves as an entertaining storyteller in the Land of the Dead.

"He looks like Sammy Davis Jr. -- but he's a skeleton," Elfman said, putting his character into perspective for me, during a recent @ The Movies interview.

The film, which set a box office record with the biggest-ever per-screen average opening, is now playing in limited release and opens nationwide Friday.

Co-directed by Burton and Mike Johnson, "Corpse Bride" follows the Victor Van Dort (voice of Johnny Depp), a reserved 19th century English bachelor, who, on the eve of his wedding to the kindly Victoria Everglott (Emily Watson), stumbles upon a gateway to the netherworld.

It's there where he unwittingly finds himself getting married to a mysterious Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), who sweeps him into the very lively Land of the Dead: a colorful place where Victor encounters a host of deceased people, creatures and skeletons -- including Bonejangles.

Like the recent Burton blockbuster "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Elfman composed the score and all of the songs for "Corpse Bride."

But instead of singing all of the songs like he did in "Charlie" (Elfman voiced the Oompa Loompas), the tunesmith here shares the spotlight with other members of the voice cast, including Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley, Tracey Ullman, Jane Horrocks and Paul Whitehouse.

Depp "unfortunately" doesn't sing a song in the film, Elfman said, Bonham Carter does, on "Tears to Shed."

"I coached her through her singing debut, and she did great," Elfman enthused. "And, she sings with a spider and worm."

As for his Bonejangles song, "Remains of the Day," it's a jazzy tune that tells the story of how the Corpse Bride came to be. The funny thing is, he wrote it with a singer other than himself in mind.

"I really didn't intend to sing it," Elfman revealed. "It happened like it did with the songs from 'Charlie' and 'Nightmare.' I always cut the songs myself doing all the voices. In 'Charlie,' I didn't count on doing all of them but it just worked out that way."

For "Corpse Bride," Elfman said that he wanted a "gruffer singer" to sing the Bonejangles song, and in fact, he and Burton auditioned more than 20 singers in New York and London, eventually recording three of them.

When all was sung and done, however, Burton knew the best person for the song was the man behind it.

"At the end of the day, Tim said, 'Look, can you just do this vocal?' I did not write it for myself, but did in the end, do it because Tim wanted me to," Elfman concluded. "It was a fun part."