That didn’t take very long. Last November, Billy Bob Thornton first hinted that “Bad Santa 2” was in development saying that it was something he “actually would like to do. I’ve never done a sequel to one of my movies, but that one makes sense to me to do it.” A month later, The Weinstein Company struck a deal with the current owners of Miramax to help develop sequels and television spinoffs to a number of prominent catalog titles including “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Copland,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Swingers,” “Clerks,” “Shall We Dance,” “The Amityville Horror,” “Rounders,” “Shakespeare In Love” and yes, “Bad Santa.” Well, it looks like contracts are now being drafted up.
The Wrap reports that Billy Bob Thornton is in negotiations to reprise his role in “Bad Santa 2.” Thornton hinted at the deal at a panel for his SXSW closer, the Willie Nelson documentary “The King of Luck” but there are still plenty of details to be worked out.
There’s no word yet if Terry Zwigoff will be back in the director’s chair and it’s unclear if the film’s original writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa will pen the followup. Their profile was raised considerably by the success of “Bad Santa” and they’ve since gone on to write and direct “I Love You Phillip Morris” and they also helmed the upcoming Steve Carell comedy “Crazy Stupid Love.”
While it’s easy to see why the studio wants a sequel, we’re not so sure it’s a good idea. At the time “Bad Santa” landed, dark, R-rated and foul-mouthed comedy like that was an anomaly in the cinematic landscape. Now, studios are bending over backwards to deliver the filthy, R-rated laughs. It will take one helluva script to make this work, but if they can get one, then we’ll be more than happy to let Thornton booze up the screen one more time.
