Post Malone Was Playing Beer Pong On Set With The Director of Jack Black’s New Movie "It's Strange How Nice He Is" (2024)

When the credits roll on Hot Frosty, dial into Paramount+ for Dear Santa, the new Farrelly Brothers movie that's sure to become a new holiday classic. Reuniting for their first feature together in 10 years, Bobby and Peter Farrelly say this Christmastime adventure was a no-brainer, as in "Snakes on a Plane easy."

For starters, the directing duo were able to get the beloved Jack Black to play their "lovable" Satan. Actually, the movie itself, which is about a young boy accidentally sending a letter to Satan instead of Santa, hinged on Black's performance. "If you don't get Jack Black," Peter Farrelly told Collider's Steve Weintraub, "I don't know how you make this movie." In addition to Black, Dear Santa also stars Keegan-Michael Key, a surprise appearance from Post Malone, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew's Robert Timothy Smith as Liam, the dyslexic child who unintentionally summons the Lord of All Evil to spend the holidays with him.

Check out their conversation below to find out what it was like to have singer and songwriter Post Malone on the film set, who the Farrelly Brothers believe is the only other actor who could have played the role of Satan had Black been unavailable, and their plans for Dumb and Dumber 3, or as Jim Carrey would like to call it, Gum and Gummier.

Only One Person Could Have Played Satan If Jack Black Said No

Or maybe Jason Bateman, too.

COLLIDER: How long have you two been trying to make a holiday film like this for the family, but that adults can also enjoy?

BOBBY FARRELLY: We love making that kind of movie. We didn't set out to make a “holiday film” until we heard this idea, which was pitched to us about a young kid who writes a letter to Santa Claus, but he misspells “Santa,” and puts Satan down. It goes to him, and he's like, “Oh my god, I never get letters from kids!” And so he comes and visits, and shenanigans ensue. So, I don't know. We loved the idea, and so it was that that drew us in.

PETER FARRELLY: But this movie took forever. It's the easiest pitch of all time. It’s Snakes on a Plane easy — a kid writing a letter to Santa, and it goes to Satan. But it's a lot harder to pull off, we found out as we were writing. This is a 10-year process of trying to get it right. It's PG-13, and we wanted it to appeal to 11-year-olds and up, and adults, and we wanted it to have a good message. But you have Satan in there, so you got to get a Jack Black. If you don't get Jack Black, I don't know how you make this movie because he's a lovable Satan, sort of in the way the devil in Damn Yankees was — not that he was lovable, but he's palatable. We needed that. There were so many things that had to come together, so it took a while.

If Jack hadn't said yes, what the fuck were you going to do?

BOBBY FARRELLY: Probably not do it. I don't know who else we could have gotten that would have been at the level like Jack.

PETER FARRELLY: Maybe Bill Murray. There are only a couple of people that could pull it off, but I think the perfect one was Jack because Jack, no matter what he does, he's always lovable. And like I said, Jack Black's going to be one of those guys, he'll be around until he's not alive anymore. He'll always be in here because he's lovable and he's a great actor, he's funny, and he appeals.

BOBBY FARRELLY: He ages like a fine wine. He really does.

Honestly, he's fantastic in it. But also, like you said, he's one of those people, sort of like the way Jason Bateman can play an A-hole, but you still like him, he's one of those kinds of performers.

PETER FARRELLY: Yeah, that's a good example. Like in Ozark. He’s fucking killing people left and right and you're totally behind him. [Laughs] He’s great. I love that guy.

The Farrelly Brothers Pushed Back on This for 'Dear Santa'

"I think it was the right move."

Did you guys ever debate calling the film Dear Satan , or did the studio say, “No chance you're getting financing?”

PETER FARRELLY: I think it was the other way around, to be honest. They wanted to call it that.

BOBBY FARRELLY: We were like, “People are going to get the wrong message,” and go, like, “I don't want to see a movie about Satan.” Satan's just a character in our Christmas story. We're in no way blowing smoke up his butt, if you would. We wanted to get away from that, so we went back to Dear Santa.

PETER FARRELLY: “Dear Satan,” to us, sounded like, I mean, I would think there are large swaths of the country that aren't going to let their kids watch Dear Satan, and it is for kids, 11-year-olds and up. Not for little kids, just to be clear. Three, four, five, or six-year-olds should not see the movie. It's got some, well, spoilers in there. Actually, at one point it was called The Typo.

BOBBY FARRELLY: It was all about the misspelling.

I can understand that title. I think the Dear Satan title is for the R-rated version, if there was ever one.

BOBBY FARRELLY: Yes. Absolutely.

PETER FARRELLY: Correct. It didn't seem right to us. But actually, the studio wanted it, and we pushed back.

BOBBY FARRELLY: I think it was the right move.

I actually agree.

Post Malone Left This Farrelly Brother Thinking, “I Should Be a Nicer Person.”

I was really surprised to see Post Malone in this because he's a pretty big star, and you never know about getting someone like that in the movie because it requires a few days of filming and they're touring. How difficult was it to get him, and what surprised you about working with him?

PETER FARRELLY: We were shocked that he accepted the role.

BOBBY FARRELLY: For all the reasons you just said that — busy. Those guys are in the studio or writing songs or touring or something, and so we didn't think we'd get him, but he gave us three or four days of his time, came, performed, delivered. He was fantastic playing himself, and he was great in the movie and was so much fun. We played beer pong with him, we hung out, and man, is he a fun guy. And a nice guy.

PETER FARRELLY: Very gracious.

BOBBY FARRELLY: So, we were very surprised about just what a gentleman he is.

PETER FARRELLY: Yeah, no airs, didn’t come with the rockstar bullshit. Just super cool.

I've seen interviews with him and spoken to people who have worked with him, and everyone says he's the nicest guy.

BOBBY FARRELLY: It's strange how nice he is. It really is. It's like, “Oh my god.” I mean, it's incredible. After I left, I was like, “You know, I should be a nicer person.” [Laughs] He's so nice to every single person, and I'm not. [Laughs]

I love talking about the editing process because it's where it all comes together. Talk a little bit about what you learned from any early friends and family screenings that impacted the finished film?

PETER FARRELLY: One thing was there were too many endings. Weren’t there a couple of little tags at the end that weren't necessary?

BOBBY FARRELLY: There was some confusion about some things that, when we showed it to an audience, they didn't quite get enough, or we had to go back and rearrange things. But that's what editing is. We know the story so well that sometimes you assume that the audience is with you, but you hear later, like, “Oh, I didn't understand this.” It’s like, “Oh, okay, maybe that's not clear enough.” So you have to go back and fix it. There were a few of those moments in this film, but hopefully, we got ‘em right.

The Original Cut of ‘Dumb and Dumber’ Was Akin to a Christopher Nolan Movie

Did you end up with a lot of deleted scenes or no?

PETER FARRELLY: No. A couple. We don't usually have a lot. There are a couple of little things we'll cut here and there.

BOBBY FARRELLY: Filmmaking’s become so expensive that you do a lot of your deleting before you film. When we made Dumb and Dumber it was a different day and age, and we were shooting on film then, by the way, too. Our original cut was three and a half hours long. We had a lot of deleted scenes because we were just shooting everything that we could. We did have a lot of deleted scenes. But now we've made enough movies to know that you’ve got to be economical about what you shoot.

PETER FARRELLY: We didn't know any better than. Dumb and Dumber now is an hour and 48 minutes. We had a three-hour and 40-minute cut, the first assembly, and we thought, “We don't know! It's our first movie.” We called our friends in and had, like, 50 or 60 friends come and watch it and put them through that for three hours and 40 minutes. The movie ends, we step outside — we're at Ocean Avenue screening room in Santa Monica — and the first guy out the door is Timmy Sheehan, and Bobby goes, “What do you think?” He goes, “The truth?” He goes, “Yeah, I guess worst movie of all time.” And Bobby goes, “Fuck you!” And he goes, “Oh, fuck you.” He goes, “Three hours and 40 minutes? What the fuck are you guys thinking?” They were yelling at us. They were friends and they were yelling at us. So, I've never shown a movie again over two hours.

BOBBY FARRELLY: We wanted to know what to take out! [Laughs] We needed to take a lot out.

By the way, you were completely right to show that long cut because you didn't know any better, and they were completely right to be so mad because they knew better, and like, “What the fuck are you showing us?”

PETER FARRELLY: Well, these people weren't in the business either. They’re our friends. They weren't in the movie business, but they're like, “Three hours and 40 minutes of any movie is tough, but a comedy?” We literally cut it right in half. It's, like, half the length of that. But I learned never to test over two hours from that point on.

Yeah, I'm fascinated by longer assembly cuts. I like seeing longer cuts, but I'm a crazy person.

The Farrelly Brothers Tease Reuniting for Another ‘Dumb and Dumber’

“Jim wanted to call it Gum and Gummier.”

Listen, it's been 10 years since you guys worked together. Please tell me you're planning on doing something else after this.

PETER FARRELLY: Yes, of course we are, but it hasn't really been because we did Loudermilk together. What we started to realize after 20 years together directing movies is that we didn't need two directors at that point. Once we have a good script, we understand what we want to do. When we did Loudermilk, Bobby would direct more than half, I would direct a couple, and I would write it. But when I'm editing the movie, I can't even remember if I directed it or he directed it. It's so exactly what I would have done. That's the truth. I'm like, “Who directed this?” I have to look for his name. And so, we’ve kind of got a good system where we're doing that. But yeah, we will definitely do something again.

Do you want to tease what it might be, or have you discussed what you might be working on?

BOBBY FARRELLY: Well, one of the things that we are working on is one of our old movies, There’s Something About Mary. We're trying to adapt that to a Broadway musical right now, so it's a musical version of that. That's one thing that we're doing. We could never rule out maybe doing another Dumb and Dumber, and this year's the 30th anniversary. Maybe at the 40th anniversary, just because we love Jim [Carrey] and Jeff [Daniels] so much. We have so much fun making those that we could revisit that, for sure.

PETER FARRELLY: And Jim wanted to call it Gum and Gummier.

Dear Santa is available to stream on Paramount+.

Dear Santa

PG-13

Comedy

Fantasy

Holiday

When a young boy mails his Christmas wish list to Santa with one crucial spelling error, a devilish Jack Black arrives to wreak havoc on the holidays.

Director

Bobby Farrelly

Cast

Jack Black , Robert Timothy Smith , Brianne Howey , Hayes MacArthur , keegan-michael key , Post Malone , P.J. Byrne , Jaden Carson Baker , Kai Cech

Writers

Ricky Blitt , Peter Farrelly , Dan Ewen

Watch on Paramount+