Violent Night 2 Director Teases Sam Raimi-Inspired Scene

Santa has been put on the naughty list.

That is the premise for Violent Night 2, the sequel to the 2022 action comedy Violent Night, in which David Harbour stars as a different kind of Santa. In the first film, a hard-drinking Santa Claus rescues a wealthy family by killing a team of mercenaries who take over their home. The first trailer for the sequel reveals that Santa has been slaughtering the naughty ever since, which places Saint Nick on his own naughty list.

Like the first movie, the trailer shows plenty of gruesome kills in Violent Night 2, but the sequel expands on that formula.

“Honestly, it took a while to figure out the story for this one,” director Tommy Wirkola tells Polygon. “The writers tried a few different approaches and treatments, [but] we didn’t want to make a sequel where we felt like we were just repeating the same recipe. Then we landed on this idea where he’s taken the wrong lessons from the first movie, which is that Santa’s now become obsessed with punishing the naughty. It’s gone so far that eventually he ends up on the naughty list and he is stripped of all his powers. He’s basically not Santa anymore. The story is about him getting stuck inside this mall, where Jared Harris is a mob boss, ruling it all with an iron fist. [Santa’s] getting entangled into all that while, at the same time, trying to figure out what Christmas means for him.”

One surprising element of the first Violent Night is that, despite the bloodshed and crude humor, it includes the heartfelt sweetness found in traditional holiday movies. The trailer features Harbour in a brightly lit shopping mall wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, pointing toward even more heart in the sequel.

“The appealing thing on the first one was to combine a very gory action movie with the beating heart of a Christmas movie,” Wirkola says. “With this one, we lean even harder into that. The goal with the second one, like the first one, is, when you leave the theater you should feel filled with Christmas spirit and joy. On this one, we will do it in a bigger way.”

The film still delivers plenty of violence and gore. Producer Kelly McCormick, who worked on Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde, highlights a sequence from the trailer where Santa makes violent use of a cookie cutter.

“The cookie cutter into the brains was a stroke of genius by Tommy Wirkola and our stunt department,” says McCormick. Wirkola adds that the extended fight serves as a tribute to Sam Raimi.

The Violent Night 2 trailer also introduces Mrs. Claus, played by Kristen Bell.

“She’s a very important part of the movie, and she did a phenomenal job. I’m obsessed with her,” says McCormick.

In addition to meeting Santa’s wife, McCormick notes that audiences will learn more about Kris Kringle. The first film offers a brief glimpse of Santa’s past as a Viking warrior, and fans have since asked David Harbour for more details about that history. Violent Night 2 explores more of that lore.

“We’ve tried to add more [of] what was happening with Santa before he was Santa,” says McCormick, though she notes that not every question about his backstory gets answered.

“There’s still more to tell after this movie,” she says, suggesting that a third installment of Violent Night could follow if this sequel succeeds.

Violent Night 2 releases in theaters on December 4, 2026.

Source: Polygon