Bringing together a pair of mid-2000s films that are mostly united in having no right being as satisfying or good as they actually are, Variety is reporting that Mean Girls director Mark Waters will be taking the reins on the planned Bad Santa 2. Waters will direct a returning Billy Bob Thornton, once again exploiting the juxtaposition we all pretend exists between Santa suits and drunken, angry criminals.
Waters’ career has lain mostly fallow since Mean Girls; every few years, he’ll toss out a Mr. Popper’s Penguins here or a Vampire Academy there, but nothing to rival the staying power of the Tina Fey-penned hit. Maybe Bad Santa 2 will be the shot in the arm his film-making needs, though, even if nothing in his filmography suggests the mean-spirited confidence that made Terry Zwigoff’s 2003 film such a misanthropic little joy.