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Bad Santa

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EntityQ527380· pop 40· linked from 129 articles

2003 film by Terry Zwigoff

Film · TMDB

6.6

You'd better watch out - Willie T. Soke is coming to town, and he doesn't care if you've been naughty or nice. Willie's favorite holiday tradition is to fill his sacks with loot lifted from shopping malls across the country. But this year his plot gets derailed by a wisecracking store detective, a sexy bartender, and a kid who's convinced Willie is the real Santa Claus.

Released: 2003-11-2692 minDir: Terry ZwigoffDrama, Comedy, CrimeBudget: $23.0MBox office: $76.5MPart of: Bad Santa Collection

Cast

  • Billy Bob Thornton as Willie
  • Tony Cox as Marcus
  • Lauren Graham as Sue
  • Brett Kelly as The Kid
  • Lauren Tom as Lois
  • John Ritter as Bob Chipeska

Themes

  • elves
  • holiday
  • department store
  • christmas party
  • safe
  • drink
  • little people
  • christmas
  • hilarious
  • xmas

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

Ratings

IMDb

7/10

167,864 votes

Year
2003
Runtime
92 min
Genres
Comedy, Crime, Drama

via IMDb

Key facts

Directed by
Terry Zwigoff
Written by
Glenn Ficarra John Requa
Story by
Ethan and Joel Coen (uncredited)
Produced by
John Cameron Sarah Aubrey Bob Weinstein
Starring
Billy Bob Thornton Tony Cox Lauren Graham Brett Kelly Lauren Tom John Ritter Bernie Mac
Cinematography
Jamie Anderson
Edited by
Robert Hoffman
Music by
David Kitay
Production companies
Dimension Films Triptych Pictures
Distributed by
Miramax Films (Worldwide) Columbia Pictures (though Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International ; select international territories)
Release date
November 26, 2003 ( 2003-11-26 )
Running time
92 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$23 million
Box office
$76.5 million

via Wikipedia infobox

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Bad Santa is a 2003 American Christmas black comedy crime film directed by Terry Zwigoff, written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and starring Billy Bob Thornton in the title role, with a supporting cast of Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, Brett Kelly, Lauren Tom, John Ritter, and Bernie Mac. It was Ritter's last live-action film appearance before his death on September 11, 2003. The film was dedicated to his memory. The Coen brothers are credited as executive producers. The film was released in North America on November 26, 2003, and was screened out of competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. It received positive reviews and was a commercial success.

An unrated version was released on DVD on March 5, 2004, and on Blu-ray on November 20, 2007, as Bad(der) Santa. A director's cut DVD was released in November 2006; it features Zwigoff's cut of the film (including an audio commentary with him and the film's editor), which is three minutes shorter than the theatrical cut and ten minutes shorter than the unrated version, the content removed being largely from Willie's time in Miami. A sequel, Bad Santa 2, was released on November 23, 2016, and failed to match the critical and commercial success of the original.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bad Santa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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