Billy Bob Thornton doubts Bad Santa 2 will match original

Bad Santa star Billy Bob Thornton has expressed doubt that the film’s proposed sequel will match the 2003 original.

The actor told The Hollywood Reporter that he believes the festival follow-up will please fans of the first film, but fall short of the standards it achieved.

He said: “We’re just waiting for a script. We’re never gonna beat the first one, but you got to get as close as you can. You just can’t go and do it halfway so we’re waiting for something that’s close enough.

“It’ll do real well, I imagine, and people will say, ‘Well, it wasn’t as good as the first one’ and we’ll say, ‘Yeah, we knew it wouldn’t be’, but I think it should be fun and I think people who liked [the first one] will enjoy it and hopefully we’ll get it off.”

Bad Santa director Terry Zwigoff will pass the torch to Doug Ellin for the sequel, which is yet to be assigned a release date, despite Thornton’s optimism of it being greenlit.

Ellin is best known as the creator of HBO series Entourage and is currently attached to a movie adaptation of the show.