L.A Time via Playlist -
Bad Santa 2 -- Producers on the movie and Dimension Films, which is developing a follow-up to the beloved 2003 black comedy with the newly constituted Miramax, have quietly hired writers to begin working on a new film for Thornton to star in, according to a person who was briefed on the project but was not authorized to talk about it publicly.
And here's the hook:
The companies are engaging in the unusual move of commissioning two different writers, with the idea of choosing between the scripts or even using one script for "Bad Santa 2" and the other script for a third film. (The two writers do know about each other.) A spokeswoman for Dimension Films confirmed the hires and the plans.The movie is being produced by Geyer Koskini,Thornton's manager who produced the original and has been developing the sequel for several years.
The scribes in question are up-and-comers who've yet to have a film produced but who have some heat in Hollywood.
One, Johnny Rosenthal, wrote a period adventure called "Iron Jack" that sold to Sony for more than $1 million in 2009 but has been stuck in development since.
The other, John Phillips, sold an R-rated comedy to Universal a few months back. That project is called "Dirty Grandpa" and is about a "recently widowed, sexually aggressive grandfather," which sounds about as "Bad Santa"-ish as you can get.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/07/bad-santa-2-sequel-billy-bob-thornton-willie-stokes-dimension.html
