Holiday returns
Unruly kids trapped at an airport, neighbors warring over Christmas decorations, two unhappy women who swap lives, a Santa Claus who still hasn’t worked out the finer details of his contract – even a yuletide serial killer.
Those are among this year’s holiday movies, aimed at a variety of sensibilities between naughty and nice. But aren’t the studios forgetting what Christmas is really about?
No, they’ve even got that base covered with “The Nativity Story,” the latest retelling of Mary and Joseph and their journey to Bethlehem for the birth of the baby Jesus.
After a dearth of holiday- themed releases last year, Hollywood has at least a half-dozen films strung with tinsel this season in a bid to tap the wallets of moviegoers.
“We do an enormous amount of business during the holidays, and it’s because families are out being with each other,” says Dan Fellman of Warner Bros., which is targeting the family audience with the kids’ comedy “Unaccompanied Minors,” about children snowed in at an airport on Christmas.
“The age range can go from 5 – because it’s a PG movie – and play up to the midteens,” Fellman says. “Families can go – Mom and Dad, and, if I’m lucky, Grandma goes, too.”
Holiday movies are big moneymakers at the theaters between Thanksgiving and the new year, and the successful Christmas flicks come around every year to keep studio stockings stuffed with fresh cash via home video and television rebroadcasts.
“The downside of a Christmas movie is you have to release it at a certain time of year, regardless of the competition. You have fewer options and less freedom,” says Toby Emmerich, production chief of New Line Cinema, which is releasing “The Nativity Story.”
“But if you hit it right, you have something that has a longer life than a normal movie,” he says. “You turn on your television at Christmastime and there are certain evergreen movies you’ll see again.”
It’s not just juggernauts such as “Miracle on 34th Street,” the you’ll-shoot-your-eye-out comedy “A Christmas Story” or Jimmy Stewart’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Even nonheartwarmers such as Chevy Chase’s “Christmas Vacation,” the ghoulish comedy “Gremlins” and “Die Hard” have become cult Christmas classics.
Billy Bob Thornton had a counterprogramming hit in 2003 with the caustic comedy “Bad Santa.” This year comes “Black Christmas,” a remake of a 1974 slasher movie about sorority girls terrorized by a psycho during Christmas break.
“This is the anti-holiday movie, the bloody holiday movie,” says producer Marc Butan. “Christmas is so over-commercialized, so oversaturated, that people relate to anything that mocks that.”
But Santa is getting his due as well thanks to Tim Allen’s latest foray as a man contractually obligated to bring good cheer to the world in “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.”
Some movies have holiday elements without being “holiday movies” per se – such as Robert De Niro’s sophomore directorial effort, “The Good Shepherd” (due Dec. 22), a thriller about the origins of the CIA which has critical scenes set at a Christmas party.