David Harbour Is An Extremely Bad Santa In The Trailer For Violent Night
Have you ever wanted to see a "Die Hard" movie with Santa himself in the John McClane role? Well, you probably haven't, but "Sonic the Hedgehog" writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller did. In 2020, Deadline reported that Universal Pictures bought the screenwriting pair's pitch for the movie "Violent Night," an exciting action film with jolly old Saint Nick as the film's leading protagonist. In the movie, a group of mercenaries try to invade a family's home on Christmas Eve night, only to find that Santa Claus won't stand for such naughtiness (per IMDb).
In a February 2021 article for The Hollywood Reporter, it was confirmed that "Stranger Things" star David Harbour would be the one to don the red suit and hat, with John Leguizamo and Beverly D'Angelo also joining the cast. With Christmas fast approaching, the trailer for the movie recently dropped, and it's exactly the kind of ridiculous fun you'd expect from such a premise.
Have you been naughty or nice?
In the new trailer, David Harbour stars as a disgruntled Santa Claus who seems to be just about fed up with his job. When the mercenaries show up with a gun pointed at Kris Kringle, he opens up a can of you-know-what. Santa does a lot more than simply give out lumps of coal, as the trailer sees him stabbing a man in the face with the star from a Christmas Tree and blowing up a man by dropping a grenade down his pants.
Fans on Twitter had a lot to say about the action-packed trailer. "Yippie-ki-yay Mother Christmas," wrote @DewiEirig in response to Rotten Tomatoes' tweet about the trailer. Another user named @FreddyInSpace wrote, "This looks ENTIRELY like my cup of tea. David Harbour is perfect casting for an a**-kicking Santa Claus, and Tommy Wirkola never misses when it comes to making movies that are just pure fun. Something to look forward to beyond the Halloween season!"
Some fans, however, did suggest that the trailer included too much information and spoiled the ending of the movie. "Did that trailer show half of the third act?" wrote @TVandBeers. Twitter user @_Brother_Alpha_ had the perfect response, though, for people who thought the trailer showed too much of the movie: "It's not the kind of movie that needs mystery. It's the kind of movie you watch a dozen times."
We'll see if that really is the case when "Violent Night" comes out on December 2.