Christmas comes around faster every year and with it comes a whole host of new movies aiming to rival Die Hard, Home Alone, and It’s A Wonderful Life as the go-to festive film.
This year’s big release is best described as the result of tossing those first two films into a blender, throwing in an ass-kicking Santa Claus into the mix for good measure.
That’s the premise for action-comedy Violent Night, where David Harbour’s Saint Nick finds himself caught in the home of a rich family as burglars break in with the aim of carrying out the ultimate heist.
Universal Pictures
They don’t believe he’s really Santa, so he does whatever he can to take them down, escape, and make sure the festive season isn’t cancelled.
It’s a simple idea and that’s exactly what attracted director Tommy Wirkola, who explained to Zavvi: “When I was sent the screenplay and told by the producer this was like Die Hard but with Santa, my initial response was, ‘where do I sign up?’
“But upon reading it, I loved that it had heart as well as insanity – I wanted to embrace the emotions of a traditional Christmas movie and pay tribute to my favourite films of that genre.
Universal
“It was a hard balance, though: you have to make sure people are invested in the beating heart of the movie so you can get away with the outrageous stuff.
“That’s one of the biggest challenges, but also the most appealing thing about making it – trying to push the comedy in an extreme direction, while also offering something sweet that audiences want from a Christmas movie.
“It’s a balancing act and hopefully we got it right!”
Universal
To ground the film, you need an actor who has considerable action and comedy chops – a performer who initially looks the comic relief, to the extent you won’t even realise how much they’re moving you. For this, there’s no better fit than Harbour, something which Wirkola knows; his name was in contention from early on in pre-production, with the director automatically sensing he’d be “perfect” for the role.
“He’s an amazing actor; he has the gravitas and the humour, but also the heart. He can pull off anything, and that mix of emotions was needed for our Santa. But crucially, we also needed somebody who could really commit to the physical part and gain weight, and he trained with the team at 87 North to gain weight, ready to kick ass in the fight sequences – he fully embraced the intense preparation for the role as much as he embraced becoming Santa himself”.
87 North, the powerhouse action movie production company co-owned by David Leitch, only recently opened their training centre informally dubbed the “Church of Pain”, with Harbour being their first high-profile client. Leitch’s productions prioritise getting their actors to commit to participating in as many of the fight sequences as possible, and for Wirkola, this proved to be a gift when it came to planning out the various action sequences in the shoot.
Universal
“Usually when you film an action scene, you’re focusing on how to block it and cover it, so it looks like the actors are taking part instead of their stunt doubles. But that’s not the approach here – we can really go for it! The first fight scene in the movie is designed to look like a long take, with Harbour doing about 90% of the work, and you can see all those months of training paying off. It adds a special element to the action: I feel like you care more about the story when you see it really is Harbour in there, doing all of this.
“One of the other fun things about the action sequences is that Santa is a guy who has forgotten how to fight! The first couple of fights, he’s barely hanging on and not what he once was, but you can see him slowly finding his groove, before he gets hit and sent back to square one. I don’t like fights that are too polished, as when they’re scrappy like this, it adds a layer of pain. You can relate to being in this fight more than the perfectly choreographed one!”
Universal
Wirkola doesn’t want audiences to be spoiled on Santa’s new back story for the film, but claims that it’s important when reimagining him as a guy who could successfully kick the s**t out of you. “You can’t look for logic in a film about Santa Claus, but there still needs to be an internal narrative logic for this to work”, he continued, “and I think the way the screenplay by Pat Casey and Josh Miller nailed that back story manages to sell it, against all the odds”.
Wirkola is currently in the midst of directing his next project, an animated musical titled Spermageddon (yes, you read that right) which feels like his logical next step as a filmmaker, after shooting several bloody fist fights soundtracked by jaunty festive numbers. The director describes it as “a Fast and Furious style movie, about sperm racing to fertilise the egg”, which is heavily inspired by classic South Park.
Looking even further beyond that, Wirkola is hopeful that Violent Night can continue to resonate as audiences revisit it every year. It’s already off to a great start, as we spoke the morning after its world premiere at the New York Comic Con, where it received ecstatic praise from attendees, and the director hopes this is the first step in a journey where it will continue to endure.
Universal
“It’s something we talked about half jokingly; once the younger kids have watched their Christmas movies in the years to come, the older ones can put this on when they go to bed. We have been hoping this will continue to resonate with people, but we’re trying not to say it out loud – our dream is that, every Christmas Eve, people will watch this late at night and have a blast.
“The other movie we were heavily inspired by was Bad Santa; it’s got this dark character, and a mix of dark and raunchy jokes, but it feels like a Christmas movie, and you want to revisit it every year. Our aim was to get that tone right, make sure it still felt like a film in that mould despite the craziness, so that people would want to keep coming back to it”.
Based on the initial response, it seems like Violent Night will be invading the homes of fans every year from here on out. It may look like a lump of coal in the seasonal movie stocking, but for action lovers, this will surely become an annual staple.
