He knows when you are sleeping and he knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been bad or good so you’d better be good or the Viking Santa is coming to get you!
That’s right! Viking Santa! Seems like Sony has won the bidding war and has acquired the film rights to the script ‘Winter’s Knight’, a Viking-themed reimaging of Good St. Nick.
There actually isn’t a lot of details on ‘Winter’s Knight’ but it seems to have garnered a lot of attention since Warner Bros., Disney, Universal, and others were involved in the bidding war on who will have the rights to it.
The writers of the script, Ben Lustig (‘The Thirst’) and Jake Thornton, don’t have much under their belts aside from the short ‘Blood Soldiers: Interrogation’, but the film does have seasoned directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg attached who were quite successful with their film ‘Kon-Tiki’ and are currently slated to co-direct ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’. To top that off, Sony has Lawrence Grey (‘Last Vegas’,’Hope Springs’) and Marc Platt (‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’,’Wanted’) onboard to produce.
I really want to know where they are going to go with a grittier version of Santa Claus, The film will be loosely based on ‘The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus’, the 1902 novel by L. Frank Baum better known as the creator of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’. No warrior-king Santa here I’m sad to say, just a different version of how his traditions came to be.
Here’s a synopsis of the book:
This enchanting tale, originally written more than 100 years ago by L. Frank Baum, marries all the magic and fantasy of The Wizard of Oz to the classic Christmas tale. Nicholas is a mortal child found in the forest and raised by a band of woodland fairies and elves, where he learns to whittle small trinkets and toys from wood. As he grows older, he makes it his mission in life to make children happy by carving and delivering toys. Such traditions like hanging stockings on the chimney, Claus’s flying reindeer, and St. Nick’s immortality are explained through Baum’s colorful narrative thread.
Are you looking forward to this take on this children’s classic? Share your thoughts below!
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
