Violent Night 2

When Santa forgets the true meaning of Christmas, he finds himself in the heart of a lively mall community in desperate need of his help. Sapped of his magic, he’ll need another way to take on the goons threatening the mall, and time is running out. Santa has to rediscover his faith in goodness and call in some last-minute reinforcements from the one person no baddie wants to tangle with: Mrs. Claus.

ReleaseDecember 4, 2026

StatusCONFIRMED

StudioUniversal Pictures

Why it matters

Director Tommy Wirkola and star David Harbour return for a sequel to the 2022 holiday action comedy that earned over $75 million worldwide against a $20 million budget.

About Violent Night 2

Four years after Violent Night turned David Harbour into a hammer-swinging Santa Claus, Universal Pictures is bringing the character back. Violent Night 2 has Tommy Wirkola returning to direct and Pat Casey and Josh Miller returning to write, with David Leitch and Kelly McCormick producing through 87North, the action shop behind Nobody and Bullet Train. The studio's logline drops Santa into a shopping mall with his magic gone and a crew of thugs to handle, which reads like the first film's setup moved from a family compound to a food court.

The sequel opens on December 4, 2026, landing at the start of the holiday season rather than against it. Filming took place in Winnipeg, and beyond that logline Universal has kept the plot back. The original cleared its modest budget several times over and grew a following at home, so the question here is tone: whether the sequel stays brutal, funny and short on sentiment, or softens now that it is a franchise.

ActionComedyFantasy

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