Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting ready to play Santa Claus in a new Christmas movie called The Man with the Bag. When I saw the trailer, I thought, “Wait, didn’t Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell already do this?” Arnie’s action-comedy is coming to Prime Video on December 2, which is just two days before David Harbour returns as Old Saint Nick in his anticipated holiday sequel Violent Night 2. That seems like a bit too much jolly fun for one weekend.
It got me thinking, why are all our favorite ‘80s action icons putting on the white beard to play Chris Kringle?
The reason actually isn’t too surprising. Everyone knows Santa. He is the ultimate Winter Wonderland IP. And he’s cheap. No particular studio owns the rights to Father Christmas. He is a free agent. Our ‘80s leading men are now in their twilight years, and there aren’t too many existing franchises for them to reboot and proliferate. Ultimately, Santa Claus is the easiest answer for them to return to the big screen with a cash-back guarantee.
Sure, they could play any aging version of a popular character. But Christmas movies have continued to grow more popular every year, and they are guaranteed to bring in more money than the 15th sequel to something that was never supposed to stretch beyond its sell-by date to begin with.
All of these action-oriented Santa movies have created their own subgenre that is starting to run pretty deep. Old-school tough guys are happy trading their days in the field of combat for a red suit. This brings subverted nostalgia along with a physical reinvention that allows them to laugh at themselves, which audiences love.
The Christmas Movies That Started It All
Most of the heavy hitters did a Christmas movie in their heyday. Some weren’t even intentional. The debate over whether Die Hard is a true Christmas movie has long been a running joke and a point of contention for many fans. The majority believe it is a holiday flick, and it gets programmed a lot around December. Bruce Willis himself doesn’t think it is a Christmas movie and railed against the idea at his Comedy Central Roast. Most disagree with Bruno.
Bruce has never played Santa himself, but he came close in the holiday-themed 2022 release Detective Knight: Redemption. Former detective James Knight is sitting in a New York jail cell awaiting trial when a massive prison break turns the city into a holiday nightmare. Leading the mayhem is the Christmas Bomber, a vicious terrorist, and his gang of deranged Santa Claus followers. With the streets descending into chaos, Knight gets an offer he might not be able to refuse: take down the holiday extremists, and he gets his badge back. It certainly falls into this recent trend of action stars taking on old Papá Noel.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a couple of Christmas movies under his belt. These include the family-friendly Jingle All the Way and the dark supernatural action-thriller End of Days, both released in the ‘90s. Perhaps most surprising is that Arnie’s one and only credit as a director is for the 1992 made-for-TV movie Christmas in Connecticut. This isn’t some action extravaganza. It’s a romantic comedy remake starring some very familiar faces that you wouldn’t immediately associate with the Austrian Oak. His cast includes Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Curtis.
Can you imagine being directed by Arnold? He decided to try his hand at this after getting bitten by the directing bug on the set of HBO’s Tales From the Crypt, when he helmed a Season 2 episode called The Switch. He chose the 1992 TNT remake of Christmas in Connecticut because it was considered “low stakes.” It was a safe environment away from the pressures of having to win the weekend box office.
Now, Arnie is jumping into Santa’s red suit for The Man with the Bag. In this comedy-action-holiday hybrid, somebody’s stolen Santa’s magical gift bag, and Christmas is about to get a lump of coal the size of the North Pole. With time running out, Santa turns to Vance, a reformed thief who’s still fresh off the Naughty List, to pull off an impossible holiday heist. Vance assembles a ragtag crew of misfits to get the bag back before the big guy’s entire operation goes belly-up. Because apparently, even Santa needs a crew of professional criminals to save Christmas these days.
Schwarzenegger’s turn as Saint Nicholas comes after quite a few other iconic ‘80s action stars have recently played the same iconic Yuletide figurehead. This trend points back to 2018, when Kurt Russell, known for his action persona in Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China, along with a whole slew of other banging thrillers, took on the role of a gruff Father Noel in The Christmas Chronicles. He played a sharp-witted, cool, blues-singing warrior Santa with a magical backstory. And he returned to the role for The Christmas Chronicles 2 in 2020.
Back in the ‘80s, Kurt got his Christmas action movie with the 1989 classic Tango & Cash, which takes place right in the middle of the Yuletide season, starring alongside Sylvester Stallone.
Stallone himself had two ‘80s Christmas movies under his belt. Before teaming up with Kurt in Tango & Cash, he rode high over the holiday season in the cop thriller Cobra, which came out in 1986, having pulled its parts from the original Beverly Hills Cop screenplay before Eddie Murphy got a hold of it.
Who’s Next on Santa’s Naughty List?
Sly hasn’t put on the red hat yet. But we suspect Stallone might just jump into the sleigh for his own Santa movie sometime in the near future. He seems poised to take on the role following his peers. He probably doesn’t want to pull on former rival Arnie’s sweaty red pants. Maybe Stallone will be the one guy who doesn’t get bitten by the Kringle bug.
Sly’s first Rambo movie, First Blood, is set against a backdrop of hanging holiday decorations. And Paulie dressed up as a drunken Santa Claus in Rocky V. But that’s as close as the Italian Stallion has gotten to playing the jolly fat man thus far.
Speaking of fat men, Mel Gibson, who had the Christmas flick Lethal Weapon back in 1987, followed Kurt Russell’s lead, appearing as a gritty, weathered, gun-toting Chris Cringle who partners with the U.S. military to save his business in the aptly titled Fatman.
This action thriller opened around the same time as The Christmas Chronicles 2, and it became obvious that a trend was emerging. Both movies proved to be hits with fans. And are still watched as perennial holiday classics to this day.
John Travolta, who, like Kurt Russell, is a man of many talents, is another action-adjacent actor who has taken on the role of Santa Claus in recent years. Only he didn’t do it in a movie or TV show. He took on the role with a series of popular Capital One holiday commercials, where he revisited his Saturday Night Fever character Tony Manero, giving us a disco duck version of Jolly St. Nick. We got to watch him strut down the street using Tony’s famous walk, shopping for local merchants, and tearing up a disco dance floor in a full red leather Santa suit.
Travolta starred in the Christmas-centric sequel Look Who’s Talking Now, which directly centers around the holiday season, culminating in a dramatic Christmas Eve snowstorm rescue where Travolta’s character is trapped at a remote cabin by a wealthy tycoon. It arrived in 1993.
Though he is no longer with us, Chuck Norris famously avoided playing Santa himself. He does have a couple of Christmas movies under his belt. Most famously, 1985’s Invasion U.S.A., which is celebrated as an unofficial “Christmas action movie” similar to Die Hard.
Norris’ character spends the entire film fighting off terrorists while navigating suburban neighborhoods, malls, and streets fully decked out in Christmas trees and decorations.
Chuck did do an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger where he hunts down a ruthless gang of criminals disguised in full Santa Claus suits who are robbing armored vehicles. Having passed away earlier this year, we won’t ever get a Chuck Norris Santa Claus movie. Which, when you think about it, is kind of a bummer.
Chuck Norris doesn’t play Santa Claus, Santa Claus plays Chuck Norris.
Did I do that right?
So far, neither Jean-Claude Van Damme nor Steven Seagal have taken on roles as Saint Nicholas. But it’s not outside the realm of possibility. That just leaves Harrison Ford when it comes to our ‘80s action icons playing the infamous holiday gift giver.
Ford probably had the most notorious bump with a Christmas-adjacent project when he reprised his role as Han Solo in The Star Wars Holiday Special, which is one of the biggest Christmas-themed bombs of all time. It was so bad, George Lucas threatened to smash every copy with a hammer all by himself.
So, the bottom line? Back in the day, all of our ‘80s action icons loved playing in the Christmas universe, and all of them have at least one holiday-themed action movie that is still watched around the tree every December. More than half of them have returned to the Christmas genre to play Santa in recent years. I suspect Sylvester Stallone will be the next tough guy to climb down a chimney. But there is no official sign that he’s ready for that just yet.
If I was to pitch him an idea? I’d want to see Sly’s Father Noel have to climb into the Swiss Alps to dissolve a dispute, only to get wrapped up in a hunt for a rogue Abominable Snowman. Hmm. I guess J.K. Simmons, who is not an ’80s action icon, did get jacked enough to cover that same territory in Red One.
Why Hollywood Keeps Giving Us Action Santas
Hollywood has figured out a way to give its aging action heroes a second shot at kicking butt, and apparently, the secret ingredient is Christmas. Between studio bean counters looking for reliable hits and audiences getting a little tired of the same old holiday fluff, putting a machine-gun-toting Santa on the big screen is starting to look like a pretty good business plan.
We’ve been mixing Christmas cheer with broken bones and explosions for decades. The difference now is that Hollywood has decided Santa doesn’t need to be a supporting character. Why hire an action star to play some guy who hates Christmas when you can stick him in a red suit and let him beat the stuffing out of the bad guys himself?
For guys like Kurt Russell, Mel Gibson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing Santa also comes with a nice little career perk. The gray hair, weathered face, and years of wear and tear that might work against them in a traditional action role suddenly become part of the appeal. Nobody needs these guys to look 30 anymore. They just need to look like Santa could throw you through a department-store window if you landed on the Naughty List.
And let’s face it, there’s something funny about taking the world’s most wholesome gift-giver and dropping him into a bloody house invasion or a high-stakes heist. Whether Santa is defending his turf in Violent Night 2 or getting caught up in the holiday caper The Man with the Bag, the joke practically writes itself. It’s the kind of premise that makes you wonder why the North Pole hasn’t hired a security team before now.
There’s also a big financial incentive. Most action movies get their theatrical run, hit streaming, and eventually disappear into the giant digital junk drawer. Christmas movies get to come back every December. A film like The Christmas Chronicles or Violent Night can become part of somebody’s annual holiday viewing tradition, giving studios another reason to dust off the tinsel and keep the royalties rolling in. If audiences keep putting these movies on every Christmas, Hollywood can keep cashing in long after the wrapping paper hits the trash.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that the sudden influx of action-star Santas is part of some elaborate Hollywood psyop. Are they weaponizing our childhood nostalgia? Reprogramming our brains to accept a Santa Claus who solves problems with explosives instead of milk and cookies? Is the North Pole secretly a military-industrial complex with a better toy budget? Probably not. But it’s fun to think about while Arnold Schwarzenegger is busy checking his list twice.
The more likely explanation is that Hollywood found a way to turn aging action heroes into Christmas cash machines, and nobody wants to be the last studio without one. Kurt Russell helped get the ball rolling with The Christmas Chronicles, and now everybody wants a piece of the Santa-sized pie. Maybe there’s no grand conspiracy here. Maybe Hollywood just figured out that the only thing better than an ’80s action hero is an ’80s action hero who can legally break into your house while skipping a shave.
You put the cookies out, I’ll get the Eggnog flavored buzz balls. Let’s go.
