Who says Hollywood’s running out of ideas? In a theatrical marketplace overflowing with superhero movies, sequels, and reboots, what moviegoers really need is a little bit of Christmas cheer … sprinkled in with a heaping dose of irreverent genre mashups that take an axe to beloved pop culture landmarks. If you’re having trouble figuring out if the tone of this article is meant to be ironic or not, well, so am I.
“The Guns of Christmas Past” comes from XYZ Films, which Deadline reports will be shopping the production at the Cannes market later this year. And incredibly enough, maybe my earlier crack about this film being an awards player may not have been so ridiculous, after all. Apparently, it will also be entered into competition at the celebrated film festival alongside efforts from auteurs like Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes, Ken Loach, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodóvar, and more. That just feels right, if you ask me.
Xavier Gens had this to say about the announcement:
“I am excited to work with Liev and XYZ Films and bring a modern design style to this unique and original script. I hope to follow in the tradition of classic holiday action movies like ‘Die Hard,’ and create a really fun film that audiences will come back to year after year.”
Look, there’s a lot of bad news going on these days. The Writer’s Guild of America just enacted a strike, Kevin Costner is leaving “Yellowstone” to the chagrin of every dad in America, and the AI craze continues to be a blight on the arts. I say we deserve to celebrate something as silly as a movie called “The Guns of Christmas Past.”
