Terry Zwigoff's Refusal To Reshoot Bad Santa Was Big Win For Todd Phillips

One of the most frustratingly mangled Hollywood success stories pertains to the supposed post-production salvation of "Bad Santa." Written by the then up-and-coming duo of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (based on a pitch from Joel and Ethan Coen), and directed by Terry Zwigoff (hot off the Academy Award-nominated "Ghost World"), the legend holds that Zwigoff's cut of the film was so relentlessly mean-spirited as to be unreleasable. This was backed up 13 years after the film's successful theatrical release by a selectively edited New York Times oral history, which privileges Bob Weinstein's version of the story.

You can't argue with the results. "Bad Santa" was the surprise, coal-in-the-stocking Christmas hit of 2003. Billy Bob Thornton's portrayal of an alcoholic mall Santa, who lazily participates in seasonal, criminal shenanigans with his elf helper, Marcus (Tony Cox), hit anti-consumerist notes with shocking brio. It reveled in the profane freedom of its R-rating but sent viewers floating out of the theater with warm fuzzies. Somewhere along the way, Thornton's Willie T. Soke learned the true meaning of Christmas by helping a bullied little kid (Brett Kelly) learn to stand up for himself.

Is the theatrical cut of "Bad Santa" a good movie? I honestly have no idea. Because I'm one of a hundred or so people who saw Zwigoff's cut at a Pasadena test screening in January 2003, and I thought that version was a masterpiece. Alas, that cut no longer exists.

According to The New York Times, here's what happened.

Bruce Fretts' brief oral history cites a "disastrous screening" that forced Bob Weinstein to ask for reshoots. "I said to Terry, 'We're not trying to ruin your movie, but there's absolutely no heart in it.' So we put in a little heart. We didn't make it vanilla. We weren't trying to make 'Not-So-Good Santa.'"

Terry Zwigoff, correctly believing he'd delivered a great film (again, I was in that theater, and it rocked with laughter from beginning to end), refused to participate. Weinstein turned to Todd Phillips, who was a month away from becoming one of the hottest comedy directors in Hollywood with the February 2003 release of "Old School," for some agreeably rowdy scenes which included Willie raiding a poolside bar, Sarah Silverman delivering mall Santa training, and the kid getting a nut-punching boxing tutorial from Willie and Marcus.

The additions worked fine. I watched the theatrical cut with friends, and they howled at Phillips' scenes — which came as no surprise to me because I'd also seen a test screening of "Old School" months prior, and knew Phillips was about to explode. But while I dug Phillips, "Bad Santa" was a Terry Zwigoff movie. Willie was a bastard until the final hour when he saw not so much the error of his ways, but the pointlessness of greed. "Do you really need all that s***?"

Did "Bad Santa" really need those reshoots?

The worst part of being in that test audience was realizing that the deck was heavily stacked against Terry Zwigoff. I participated in the 20-person focus group and watched in horror as people who'd howled at the film were coaxed by the moderator into declaring Willie unlikable (which he was, by design) to the extent that he needed redeemable qualities. One of the best studio comedies of the post-New Hollywood era was ruined that night.

Dimension Pictures, perhaps realizing they'd defanged a modern classic (or, more likely, eager to squeeze every last drop out of an accidental box-office smash), released DVDs of "Badder Santa" and a Director's Cut of "Bad Santa." When Roger Ebert opted to screen the Director's Cut at his 2006 Overlooked Film Festival, he asked to print my 2003 Pasadena test screening review for Ain't It Cool News in the program. I enthusiastically consented. "Terry thinks that's the only review of his cut," he said. I've watched the DC that was released on DVD, and it feels more like a reconstruction of the Pasadena cut than the stone-cold masterpiece I watched that night. Something's missing. Obviously, none of this is Todd Phillips' fault. He was hired to do a job and clearly came through.

But Zwigoff hasn't made a feature since 2006's "Art School Confidential," and I dearly miss his caustic voice.