Santa Claus to get his own gritty Viking origin story
After years of tense battle, the War on Christmas may well end in a bloody melee of looting, pillaging, and presents with the deployment of Viking Santa, the subject of the new Sony film Winter’s Knight. As reported by Deadline, Kon-Tiki’s Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg are expected to build on their current franchise momentum—which began with their taking over the next Pirates Of The Caribbean—by helming a new script that explores the “Viking-mythology-tinged” origins of Santa Claus, telling the tale of how Father Christmas, a variant of the Norse god Odin, came to rule with a mighty fist over Asgard and the frozen pagan world, then started making toys in exchange for cookies.