It’s almost a Christmas tradition. Every year, as the end of year holidays approach, many Christmas films are broadcast on television. Among the most cult, Santa Clause is garbage is one of the essentials. The fiction with lines that have become very famous will be broadcast again on France 2, Monday December 25, 2023, at 9:10 p.m. The opportunity to reveal five things you may not know about Jean-Marie Poiré’s film.
1. A mixed success in theaters
If the Splendid troupe’s film has become legendary, everything did not get off to a flying start. When it was released in cinemas in 1982, it attracted only only 1,582,732 spectators in cinemas. Jean-Marie Poiré, the director of the film, made “install microphones to record the atmosphere during private screenings“and then congratulated himself on never having”heard so much laughter” he told Tele-Leisure on December 22, 2021. Discovering these figures, “[sa] disappointment was therefore very great“.
2. A title that is “too provocative”…
Nobody is offended today by the name of the feature film with its cult lines, but it was controversial at the time. In his book Cinema secrets, Quoted by Atlantico in July 2017, author Bruno Cras wrote: “The RATP, for example, did not want our posters because of the overly provocative side. There is even a distributor, in the South, who asked me to authorize him to add a sort of Post-it note to the poster with the words ‘Almost’.“To make their task easier during filming, the production teams adopted the code name The Bronzed celebrate Christmas.
3. Who could have been much more vulgar
Santa Clause is garbage is however a watered down version of another title that the members of Splendid had considered giving to their work: Santa Claus shot himself in the ass. “It was Balasko who said that once, I think. And we had other, horrible ones!“, commented Gérard Jugnot on this subject, on France Inter in September 2021.
4. An American remake
Like many popular French hits – we think of Untouchables, Welcome to the Ch’tis or even to LOL – Santa Clause is garbage was entitled to its American remake. Nora Ephron, high priestess of romantic comedies, took Mixed Nutsreleased in 1994. Despite a 5* cast – Steve Martin, Liev Schreiber, Juliette Lewis – the test was not conclusive.
5. A cameo from Julio Iglesias?
Pierre and Katia dance a legendary slow dance on Destiny by Guy Marchand. An iconic soundtrack. Except that originally, they had to wiggle to a song by Julio Iglesias. HAS BFMTV in December 2020, Jean-Marie Poiré explained that “the production found what Julio Iglesias’ publisher was asking for too expensive“. To compensate, they stuck the portrait of the Spanish singer in Josette and Félix’s caravan.