Billy Bob Thornton: 'Bad Santa Spawned a Lot of Imitators'

We've been hearing rumblings about a Bad Santa sequel for the better part of a decade and many fans still have hopes for the return of Billy Bob Thornton's foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, yet strangely lovable, Father Christmas.

IGN sat down with Thornton recently to talk about his role in FX's upcoming limited series, Fargo (stay tuned for more on that). During the course of our conversation, we touched on the oft-discussed Bad Santa 2, which has, to date, had some trouble getting off the ground.

"We're just waiting for the right script," Thornton said when asked if there had been movement on the sequel. "We know that we'll never beat the first one, but we have to get as close as we can. We've been through a couple of drafts and it looks good."

The actor can't say with 100% assurance that they'll move forward with the film until they have a green-light, but he remains optimistic about the project.

"I've never done sequels but this is one that kind of begs for one," Thornton said. "And it seems right to me. It doesn't feel gratuitous to do a sequel, where as with some other movies I think it might be. Like I was asked to do a sequel to Sling Blade over, and over, and over. But how would you do that? That would just be milking it to do that. But Bad Santa is open for a sequel, and I think that with a comedy that's okay."

Will we ever see the return of Bad Santa?

"The thing about that character is that at the end of the day he's a sympathetic character, so you want to see this poor schmuck somehow find a glimmer of hope in life," Thornton reflected when asked what he'd like to see for Willie the second go around. "But you don't want him to ever soften-up either. So that's the line we have to walk, just like in the first movie."

There have been a slew hard R comedies that have followed in the wake of Bad Santa, including Bad Teacher, Bad fill in the blank...When asked if these offerings were Bad Santa's children to some degree, the actor affirmed that there was "no doubt about it."

"I did Mr. Woodcock and Bad Santa and you look at some of those movies and they're combinations of those," Thornton said. "Bad Santa was a movie that spawned a lot of imitators, there's no question about it."

Given the rise in popularity of comedies featuring antiheroes, there could be some pressure to not only meet and surpass the original film, but also those that it inspired. Thornton isn't concerned, though.

"I only worry about trying to live up at least half-way to Bad Santa," the actor said. "I'm not worried about the other movies at all."

As always, we will keep you updated as details emerge.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com