There are stunt castings, and then there are stunt castings. What else can you say, exactly, about the fact that Kurt Russell is playing Santa Claus in a new Christmas movie coming soon to Netflix? The Christmas Chronicles comes to us straight from director Clay Kaytis, whose only other directorial credit is The Angry Birds Movie, so you’ll forgive us if we doubt that he was on Russell’s short list of actors he wants to work with before he dies. Yep—Tarantino, Carpenter … Kaytis.
As for the plot of this Christmas movie, the trailer barely suggests it, but the synopsis makes things a bit more clear:
The story of sister and brother, Kate and Teddy Pierce, whose Christmas Eve plan to catch Santa Claus on camera turns into an unexpected journey that most kids could only dream about.
So it’s basically that Bob’s Burgers episode where the kids try to capture Santa, except it actually works? As for the rest, here’s a few stray observations:
— The North pole sets look like they were taken straight out of storage from The Santa Claus series of films.
— Kurt Russell is charming as you’d expect. He actually has a few funny lines, like saying that billboard images of him “add 80 pounds.”
— If elves are four-inch-tall furry monsters, how do they do all of Santa’s heavy manual labor?
All in all, The Christmas Chronicles looks like a weird mashup between Elf, The Santa Claus, and I dunno … Fred Claus? Regardless, given that this is premiering on Netflix on Nov. 22, it’s sure to get a massive amount of views. Watch the full trailer below.