Christmas has come early this year, as after being shown behind closed doors at CinemaCon in April, the first trailer for the upcoming action sequel Violent Night 2 is here.
David Harbour is back as the potty-mouthed, all-fighting Santa Claus we met four years ago when he saved a family from a deadly home invasion in the 2022 original. However, as you can see in the new clip below, ol Nick's actions have come back to bite him as he finds himself on the naughty list. Now living as a regular human without powers, Santa begins working at a local mall. But when a criminal organization led by Jared Harris targets the building, he must use the power of Christmas, aka his fighting fists, to protect his new community.
Lucky for Santa, he has new friends by his side, including Anaconda's Daniela Melchior, King Bach and Sopranos star Joe Pantoliano. But the big reveal comes right at the end of the trailer, where we get our first look at Kristen Bell as Mrs. Claus.
We sat down with director Tommy Wirkola and producer Kelly McCormick to break down the trailer and discuss their approach to the sequel, including how the team kicked the action up a notch and why Bell is the perfect person to play Harbour's better half.
Bigger sets and a badder Santa
Right away we can see that Violent Night 2 is on a much bigger scale than the first movie. "It feels like a bigger world, more of a bigger character canvas, and I would say also kind of a bigger story," explains Wirkola. However, the director says with that comes the challenge of wanting to "give people what they want and liked about the first one without overdoing it, and also at the same time giving them new stuff and expanding on the myth." However, the director says he "knew pretty early on we wanted the setting of the mall."
The sequel was shot on location in and around a real mall in Winnipeg, Canada. McCormick reveals that the mall was being renovated at the time, but was still half open with some stores still functioning. "We filled a lot of the empty places with product placement, and we were able to use the two-story mall to kind of create this Christmas-like world." McCormick says this worked in their favour, as they were able to turn the top level into Santa's Village, but still managed to keep on budget.
Wirkola was able to include scenes about Santa's "backstory and Viking history" that were cut the first time around. Wirkola also says that after the 2022 film hit screens, he and Harbour checked in with fans online and saw that viewers wanted to know more about Santa's origins, so they implemented just that.
The team also managed to slip in a few Easter eggs, some of which you can spot in the trailer. During the fight in the kitchen, the two assailants look rather like the burglars from Home Alone, and Santa's new position at the mall reminds us a lot of Elf and Bad Santa. The oven scene also harkens back to Hansel and Gretel, a fairytale which Wirkola has adapted in the past. However, the director says that one was not his idea: "I blame the writers for that."
Meet the new Mrs Claus
One way in which the sequel expands on Santa's backstory is by introducing his wife. We are used to seeing Mrs. Claus presented as an older, homely woman who is often waiting at home in the North Pole, baking cookies and looking after the elves. However, from the first trailer we can see that Kristen Bell's Mrs. Claus flips that stereotype on its head. Santa's long-lost wife steps into frame looking strong and capable, with a hammer in hand, ready to help her husband kick some ass.
After voicing our favourite Norwegian Disney princess in the Frozen franchise, it makes sense that the Violent Night team would want Bell to play their Viking queen. But McCormick reveals that the casting kind of came out of nowhere.
"I don't even know how it happened," says McCormick. "She's a huge fan of the franchise, which we didn't know at the time. And she and David Harbour are really old, dear friends, so I think that had something to do with it." This is the first live-action movie Bell has appeared in in some years, which McCormick says is due to family commitments. So the team had just a few days to shoot Bell's scenes. But even though Bell only appears in part of the movie, McCormick says "she has such an impact on the movie," adding, "She's just so perfect as our Mrs. Claus. I feel really lucky to have her."
"She is so perfect in the role, and she's a great partner for David's Santa. In the little time we have with them on screen, we really get a sense of their relationship, their history, and they really played well off each other," adds Wirkola. "She brought so much humanity and humor, and the moment she shows up, you just love that character… She's a great fighter."
Santa goes full John Wick
It's not just Mrs. Claus who is bringing the heat, though, as without his powers, Harbour's Santa has no choice but to put 'em up and fight the bad guys rather than using his magical nose twinkle. This gave Wirkola and McCormick, best known for producing action hits like Nobody, Bullet Train, and Atomic Blonde, the chance to extend the franchise's fighting scenes.
"Instead, he uses his brawn and more Christmas decorations, which is really what the whole movie has always been about. Like, how can you weaponize Christmas decorations?" says McCormick. Wirkola adds, "We had a lot of fun coming up with set pieces and kind of giving him big challenges without him having the reliance on his Santa magic."
However, powerless Santa gives the audience a chance to get to know Harbour's antihero on a human level. "It also was an opportunity to explore the emotional side," adds McCormick. "Who are you when your powers are taken away? If you're Santa Claus, who are you if there's no more Christmas? I think a lot of us feel like our identity is so wrapped into what we do, that I think it'll be really relatable."
Wirkola echoes that the sequel will really get down to what Christmas really means for Santa. "Christmas can mean so many different things for so many people, but he has to figure out what it means for him or what it meant for him when all this began."
However, don't expect Violent Night's Santa to turn into a jolly, ho, ho, ho-ing bundle of joy by the end of the sequel, as Wirkola isn't finished with the franchise yet. Although the director doesn't want to "jinx" himself, the filmmaker can see space for a potential third movie. "There's still a lot of mystery around his character, and especially around him and Santa Claus and the workshop and how that works and all that stuff," says the Dead Snow helmer. "So yeah, I mean, if we're lucky enough to make another one, it feels like we, at one point, need to address the North Pole."
Violent Night 2 hits screens on December 4, 2026. For more, check out our guide to movie release dates and keep up with new movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.
