David Harbour is the latest character to play ol’ Kris Kringle in live-action, making his debut as the character in Universal’s gory comedy Violent Night. Throughout the movie, Santa Claus’ origins were teased as a Viking warrior, though movie-goers only caught a glimpse of the bloodied Norseman. At one point, Mrs. Claus was even going to arrive in the wildest way possible, though it was cut for a variety of reasons.
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In the original ending, Mrs. Claus was going to show up during a “helicopter versus flying sleigh dogfight,” according to writer Pat Casey. Instead, the ending was rewritten due to budgetary concerns. Then, as Casey and his co-writer Josh Miller decided, the role didn’t make all too much sense in the grand scheme of things.
“She still showed up, but she didn’t really get to do anything awesome anymore,” Casey said in a recent chat with SYFY Wire. “And we’re like, ‘Oh, if she’s not gonna do anything, then let’s just save her for the next one.’”
Still, they have every intention on introducing the legendary character at some point in the inevitable Violent Night 2.
“The Vikings went down to Africa, they discovered North America hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus, ‘discovered it,’” Miller added. “So really, the sky’s the limit for who could play Mrs. Claus because who’s to say at what point in his past he met her and where?”
In addition to Mrs. Claus, Santa’s elves and the North Pole were also both supposed to appear in the feature but were, again, cut for budgetary concerns. The elves were part of our pitch, but once we sold the movie, that was one of the two big picture notes we got from Universal,” Miller explained. “It was just kind of the simple, ‘We can’t really afford to show the North Pole, so let’s just not do it.’ And we’re like, ‘Gotcha.’”
Violent Nightย is now showing exclusively in theaters.
What’d you think of the new Christmastime fare? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!
