20 facts you might not know about 'Bad Santa'

Joel and Ethan Coen are as respected as any filmmakers out there. They brought us “Fargo,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “The Big Lebowski.” As such, it is maybe a bit surprising that a raunchy comedy like “Bad Santa” was originally their idea. They ended up serving as executive producers.

As producers, the Coen brothers hired the team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa to bring to life their idea about an alcoholic Santa perform who finds redemption in the end. At the time, it may not have seemed obvious on paper, as Ficarra and Requa had primarily just written for animated Nickelodeon shows like “Angry Beavers.” And yet, the Coens hired them for their movie that they said they wanted to be like the “Bad News Bears.” This turned out to be prophetic, as Ficarra and Requa would go on to write the “Bad News Bears” remake.

Ficarra and Requa wrote what they called a “really crass” screenplay for “Bad Santa,” at which point they said the Coens added some crass jokes of their own. At this point, the script was shown to Universal, who proceeded to vehemently pass on what they found to be a “disgusting” movie. Meanwhile, everything Universal didn’t like it what appealed to Miramax and got them to agree to greenlight the movie.

Making a potentially alienating movie about an amoral outsider? That was right up the alley of director Terry Zwigoff. The underground filmmaker was fresh off his cult hit “Ghost World” when he was offered the chance to direct “Bad Santa,” an offer he was willing to take. This is, oddly, his most-commercial film in his career.

When they were crafting the movie before handing it off, the Coens had certain actors in mind for a few key roles in the movie. They envisioned Angus T. Jones as Thurman and Danny Woodburn as Marcus. In the main role of Willie, they were thinking James Gandolfini, who they had worked with in “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Some of the names being bandied about for Willie included Bill Murray, Robert De Niro, and Jack Nicholson. Obviously, the producers would have been happy to have any of those actors, but in the end, it was Billy Bob Thornton who got the role. Maybe the whole “The Man Who Wasn’t There” thing was still in the air, as Thornton had starred in that movie.

In the end, as director Zwigoff chose Tony Cox for the role of Marcus and Brett Kelly for Thurman. This was not met with approval by the producers, including the Coens, however. In spite of the protestations, Zwigoff stuck to his guns, believing that Cox and Kelly were the funniest performers for those parts.

There are some notable faces from the time in “Bad Santa,” such as Lauren Graham and Bernie Mac, not to mention a small role for the legendary Cloris Leachman. However, also in the cast was a working character actor in the role of Opal. That part was played by Octavia Spencer. Since then, she had become a star and has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards three times, winning once.

John Ritter died on September 11, 2003, at the age of 54. This would be the comedy star’s final live-action film, and it would be the first of three posthumous releases that came out in the wake of his death. “Bad Santa” is dedicated to his memory in the end credits.

The action in “Bad Santa” takes place in the Saguaro Square Mall in Phoenix, Arizona, but the movie was shot all in California. All of the mall-related scenes were shot in a wing of the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California, with the former Montgomery Ward being turned into Chamberlain’s, the store within the movie. In the end, not just that store, but that entire wing of the mall was vacant. It has since been demolished entirely.

Would a raunchy, irreverent Christmas film click with audiences? Evidently yes. “Bad Santa” made $60 million in the United States and Canada and $76.5 million worldwide on a $23 million budget. Not too shabby for a hard-R comedy competing with family fare during the holiday season.

Willie is an alcoholic, and Thornton has said that at times during making the movie he was not doing drunk acting as much as he was acting while drunk. In particular he has said that he was intoxicated while doing the scene where he falls down the escalator.

Look, you can’t argue with a title like “Bad Santa.” The movie delivers what that promises. That being said, the English translation of the Czech title would have really grabbed attention on a marquee. In Czech, the title roughly translates to “Santa is a Pervert.”

The police chief in the movie is played by Sheriff John Bunnell. That’s the name he tended to go by professionally. He was a real sheriff in Oregon, though that wasn’t his primary claim to fame. No, that was the fact he was the host of “World’s Wildest Police Videos” from 1998 until 2001.

Apparently, the Del Amo Mall was amenable to movies and TV shows being shot in its environs. Its parking lot, which you see in “Bad Santa,” was used in several films. Most notably, it’s the parking lot where Robert De Niro’s character shoots Bridget Fonda’s character in “Jackie Brown.”

Willie, as a safecracker, is put to the test by the Kintnerboy Redoubt safe in the film. This is not a real brand of safe, but if the name rings a bell we may know why. The Kintner boy, Alex, is one of the people killed by the shark in “Jaws.”

Sarah Silverman’s style of comedy would go perfectly with the raunchy world of “Bad Santa,” so perhaps it’s not surprising she was supposed to be in the film. She plays the teacher of a Santa Claus class in a one-scene role. However, her scene didn’t make the movie, though as a deleted scene it is available to watch.

During the heyday of DVDs and Blu-rays, it was not uncommon for a successful R-rated comedy to release an unrated version, and “Bad Santa” was no exception. The “Badder Santa” release featured seven minutes of added footage, plus an R-rated gag reel for good measure.

Oftentimes with a director’s cut, you get a longer, more indulgent film. The director puts back in all the stuff that they were asked to cut to get under a certain run time. “Bad Santa” got a director’s cut release, but it is not what you might expect. Zwigoff’s director’s cut is actually three minutes shorter than the theatrical version.

Many years after the 2003 hit, we got a sequel in “Bad Santa 2.” This movie wouldn’t be released until 2016. It had new screenwriters, and also a new director in Mark Waters, who had directed “Mean Girls.” “Bad Santa 2” has almost an entirely-new cast outside of Thornton, Cox, and Kelly, even though Kelly was now an adult. The only other cast member to return? That would be Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer. The movie failed to make its budget back in the box office, so don’t expect a third.