PeterandBobby Farrelly’s Christmas comedy,Dear Santa, starring Jack Black, has finally arrived after a decade-long journey.Dear Santafollows the story of Liam (Robert Timothy Smith), a young boy with dyslexia who thinks that Santa Claus “is probably not real.” Still, he decides to write Santa a letter, but a spelling error has dire results. Instead of addressing the envelope to the jolly bearded gift distributor, Liam writes “Satan,” summoning Black’s character, who begins pretending he is Santa. During a recent conversation withVariety, the brothers discussed where the idea forDear Santawas born and why it took them ten years to get the movie “just right:”
“Pete Jones and Kevin Barnett, who we work with a lot, brought us the idea and they said, ‘A kid’s writing a letter to Santa, but he misspells it and instead writes it to Satan.’ We’re like, ‘We’ll buy that. Ok, let’s do it.’ It was like the ‘Snakes on a Plane’ pitch. But what we didn’t realize is it’s a nice opening, but man, this is a complicated thing. This took us ten years to get right, ten years we’ve been developing this thing because it’s a fine line. You need to have the right Satan — Jack Black in this case, which is a blessing, and it has to have the right tone, and it’s PG-13. It was complicated,” Peter said.
Noting that despite its plot revolving around the devil,the flick is not a horror movie, Bobby added:
“Yeah, it’s a Christmas story, so we didn’t want it to be a horror movie or anything like that. It had to have a lot of comedy and heart and an uplifting message to it.”
The Farrelly Brothers' Future Could Involve More ‘Dumb & Dumber’
The Farrelly Brothers are best known for their work on comedy features likeDumb and DumberandThere’s Something About Mary (and individual directorial efforts likeGreen BookandChampions). Dear Santa marks a reunion between the filmmaking duo and Black, who starred intheir 2001 featureShallow Hal.Bobby was at the helm forDear Santa, while Peter co-scribed the script with Ricky Blitt.Dear Santastars Black, Smith, Brianne Howey, Hayes MacArthur, Keegan-Michael Key, and Post Malone. Jones and Barnett executive produce.
The brothers have several projects lined up, and among them could be a thirdDumb and Dumbermovie, as Peter says that he could easily see him and Bobby “doing another ‘Dumb and Dumber’ someday.” WhileDear Santais not a horror flick - despite its kind of creepy plot - that is one genre that Peter and Bobby hope to dip their toes into in the future. When asked if there is any genre they’d like to try, Peter shared:
“Absolutely: Horror. I want to do a horror movie that’s going to scare the hell out of people someday, but we don’t plan. We’re not good planners. That’s why we were horrible students in school. So we kind of do what the universe drops in our lap.”
Dear Santais available to stream on Paramount+ and for purchase on digital platforms like Google Play and Apple TV.
