The Farrelly brothers are back with a new Christmas movie. The comedy legends behind hits like Dumb & Dumber and There’s Something About Mary teamed up for Dear Santa, which stars Jack Black as Satan posing to be Santa. The film, directed by Bobby Farrelly (Peter Farrelly wrote the script with Ricky Blitt), is now streaming on Paramount+ and is available to own on digital.
“When a young boy mails his Christmas wish list to Santa with one crucial spelling error, a devilish Jack Black arrives to wreak havoc on the holidays. From the hilarious minds behind Dumb & Dumber, Christmas is about to go up in flames,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Bobby, Jack Black is just so naturally likable. He could be doing the worst things, and the audience is still gonna get a kick out of it. So, how was it finding the right tone for his version of Satan here?
Bobby Farrelly: Well, you’re absolutely right. Jack Black was the perfect guy for us. Because we wanted that. Obviously, the young kid writes a letter to Santa, but he misspells it, and it goes to Satan. So Satan, played by Jack Black, shows up at Christmastime, and comedy ensues. But we wanted to make sure that it didn’t get too dark. It didn’t become a horror movie or anything like that. We wanted to tell a nice Christmas story. So Jack Black is the perfect guy to play this because he does have that little bit of a devilish look to him and all that, but always in a way that you love him and go with him. He’s funny, and you trust him.
Peter, the core idea of this film, the dyslexic kid writing Satan instead of Santa. It’s so funny. When did you realize there was enough meat to really expand this out into a full film rather than just a funny premise?
Peter Farrelly: Not soon enough, because when Pete Jones and Kevin Barnett came in and pitched it to us 12 years ago, they said, “How about this for an idea? A kid’s writing a letter to Santa, but instead, he misspells, and it goes to Satan.” I was like, “We’ll do that movie. I love it.” I thought it was the easiest pitch ever. It was like Snakes on a Plane easy. But it wasn’t that easy because you really do have to balance it. There’s so much there.
First of all, like Bobby said, you have Satan at Christmas. We wanted to do a family movie, but we wanted it to be PG-13. We didn’t want it to be PG because this isn’t for little kids. Just to be clear, it’s not for 4, 5, 6, or 7-year-olds. It’s 11-year-olds and up. But we also want it to be for adults. So, honestly, it took us 10 years to get it right. Not that we were working on it the whole time, we went off and did other things, but it was just in the last year or two that we figured it out.
Bobby: Yeah, sometimes you have to step away. We tried some versions and it didn’t work. It was the wrong tone or something. But finally, Pete and Ricky Blitt, I think they got the script right. Once we got Jack on board, it just all felt really good.
Bobby, there are a couple of really funny scenes with Post Malone, and you don’t get much bigger than him as an artist right now. How is it working with him? He seems so down-to-earth and fun.
Bobby: Well, you’re right. We couldn’t have done better than Post Malone. He’s just red hot. He was red hot then, he keeps getting bigger and better this year. He went into country music, and the guy’s just really super talented. We were really lucky to get him, for him to give us three or four days of his time and come and perform and play himself and play beer pong with us and all those fun things. But we did it.
And what a nice guy. Like an unbelievably decent, friendly, super polite guy. It was just really awesome. It was the highlight of the movie, I think, just those three or four days with him.
Peter: It actually made [Bobby] want to be a nicer guy. Seriously.
Bobby: Yeah, and that’s never happened to me
That’s the power of doing a Christmas movie.
Peter, you two have obviously stayed collaborators, as this movie shows, but are we gonna see you two fully direct something together again as the Farrelly brothers, or is it just too easy to get more done solo?
Peter: No, I could definitely see us doing something again, but it is easier solo because… Like our TV show, Loudermilk, I would write the episodes and direct a couple, but then Bobby would come in and direct all the other episodes, and I’d be editing them as he’s directing them. It is sort of seamless. Literally when I’m editing, I can’t remember if I directed it or he directed it because I’m looking at it so much. I’m like, “Was I there that day? I can’t remember.” So it’s a good system, but I would love to. I hope we do direct [together again]. It’ll be fun.
Bobby: It is fun. Yeah. But we get a lot more done if we split up a little. Divide and conquer. But at the right project, we’ll come back to work together again [as the Farrelly brothers].
Thanks to the Farrelly brothers for taking the time to talk about Dear Santa.
