Coming Soon: Rise of the Guardians

Just when you thought movies have portrayed Santa Claus in every way possible. . . Hollywood hits you again, this time with a Santa Claus who is pretty much a biker. (Bad Santa doesn’t count, he was a conman dressed as Santa). This animated feature stars Alec Baldwin, Chris Pine, Hugh Jackman (whose name is E. Aster Bunnymund), Isla Fisher, Jude Law and Dakota Goyo (the kid from Real Steel).

According to the official website, “Rise of the Guardians is an epic adventure that tells the story of a group of heroes- each with extraordinary abilities. When an evil spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the immortal Guardians must join forces for the first time to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children all over the world.” You can also get mini biographies of each character, and according to both the site, Pitch is actually the boogeyman who is jealous of the other immortals being loved while he is feared and hated. I’m going to call it now and say that the immortals will beat Pitch, and he will either “disappear” (meaning he’ll die, but younger kids won’t understand) or his views will change and he will do good. Now I don’t see a sequel for this movie, but if they really want to milk it, they’ll let him disappear or change his views, and then leave a “hook” or something similar which hints to more evilness in the future.

While there has been little press about the movie, it is coming out on November 21^st of this year, and is based on a book series by William Joyce called The Guardians of Childhood. The movie takes place after the events of the series, which started because Joyce’s daughter asked him if the Easter bunny knows Santa, prompting Joyce to respond, “Not only do they know each other, they work together.” And according to The Collider, Patrick Hanenberger- the production designer for the film- has stated that they looked at the geographical areas where the characters would come from- the North Pole is full of Russians, the Tooth Fairy us Southeast Asian.  “We wanted to treat them as badass warriors.” He said that instead of the too jolly, “a little drunk” looking Santa, they chose a muscley (yes, I’m a writer. . . I’m allowed to make up words) looking Santa.

And in a video with The Collider, Guillermo Del Toro, the executive producer of Rise of the Guardians he states that he was quite surprised the filmmakers got away with such a dark tone within the movie. “We were watching the opening and we were giggling because we were thinking, ‘We got away with this!’ We’re doing a movie that is this expensive, that is destined for a family audience and we were able to open with a dark and moody and poetic piece, and then we have other pieces like that throughout the movie. We had some radical ideas with it. I hope it can set a different tone for family movies, for entertainment movies.” (He even gives details of the upcoming Pinocchio movie).

Trailer 1:

Trailer 2: