As if 2020 couldn't get any more strange, a trailer for Mel Gibson's dark comedy Fatman dropped today. The film proclaims to tell "the real story" of Father Christmas, and it's probably unlike any you've ever heard or seen yet.
Mel Gibson plays a hard-drinking, gun-toting Father Christmas, who has seemingly lost his magical luster. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I've lost my influence," mourns Gibson's Santa Claus. "All I have is a loathing for a world that's forgotten."
With his business of holiday gift-giving down in the dumps, Santa offers his services to the United States military "for extra cash". Things really take a turn for the crazy when Santa gets "locked into a deadly battle of wits against a highly-skilled assassin (Walton Goggins), hired by a precocious 12-year-old who received a lump of coal in his stocking," according to EW.
Reindeer, shootouts, elves, explosions and Christmas cookies, Fatman gives off some serious "The Night the Reindeer Died" vibes (a fictional film within the movie Scrooged). It also feels like a take on Santa that's perfectly suited for the chaos of 2020.
In addition to Gibson, the film also stars Walton Goggins, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Shaun Benson, Chance Hurstfield, Jordan Blais, Deborah Grover, and Paulino Nunes.
Fatman rolls into select theaters November 13 and on digital November 17.