Wtaf just happened?

RUDOLPH THE DERANGED DEER
The filmmakers were surprised at how much the cast of A Bad Moms Christmas pushed the envelope of this R-rated comedy. “They would do anything,” says Moore. Continues Lucas, “Women in these kinds of R-rated comedies often are just standing there saying ‘tisk, tisk, tisk’ while the men are having all of the fun, and now these women have changed that.”
Says Moore, “In our movies the guys are the ones saying the right things and making the right choices, and the girls can be the ones who say the horrible things and get to behave like animals. For our cast I have to believe it is kind of fun.”
Moore and Lucas confess that it is always fun writing Carla. Says Moore “Just take everything you are not allowed to say everyday and write it down in CAPS.” Continues Lucas,” The best stuff is when our amazing moms and mom’s moms take it, tweak it, and make it organically their own. Certain actors love going by book, others like to improvise. It’s sort of like parenting, you are trying to give people what they need.”
Says Moore, “I think at the end of the day women are as raunchy as men they just don’t express it as much. In Bad Moms the pink hoodie scene discussed in the bathroom was pitched by Suzanne Todd’s deranged mind, and not from our deranged minds.”
Lucas and Moore give a shout out to their wives who they say read everything they write, and also their collaborator, producer Suzanne Todd, who on the set is a great sounding board for what works for the Bad Moms fans.
Say Lucas, “There are a couple of big beats with a stripper in the film that we had an idea that we thought would be funny for the scene, then Suzanne said ‘actually let’s make him smoking hot.’ Suzanne said, ‘when he takes his shirt off, the audience wants the real deal.’”
Laughs Todd, “Yes! Give us our moment. The audience shouldn’t be laughing they should be saying ‘oh yeah.’”
Concludes Lucas, “The people who liked the first film want and expect a sort of R-rated comedy from this film too, and we are going to give it to them and then some.”
DO YOU WEAR WHAT I WEAR
Costume Designer, Julia Caston once again joins the Bad Moms team for A Bad Moms Christmas.
Caston wanted to make Bad Moms Amy relatable to every woman and mom. “I used very simple lines and silhouettes on Amy, nothing to confuse the eye,” says Caston.
On Kiki, Caston summed up Kiki’s style as outdated, disheveled, and last on her to-do list. “In the beginning of Bad Moms Kiki didn’t have any time for herself, but that changed. So in this movie I have given her a bit more style, rather than an uptight kind of mess. She’s very pink in this one, and also a whole lot of mint going on with her wardrobe palette.”
Add Kristen Bell, “Kiki still loves a good wool sweater, but I am wearing a little more eye makeup in this movie thanks to Carla.”
Dressing Carla continues to be a hoot. “She only wears heels, and always accessorizes,” says Caston. “Katherine Hahn is game for anything. We took her into a room where we pulled outfits we thought Carla would wear and went for it. Carla is that alter ego inside all of use that just wants to have fun and walk down the street and be like ‘look at me!’.
Katherine Hahn loved the choices Caston gave her character, “Carla has a real sense of style that is individual and authentic. When something speaks to her, she’s just going to wear it. You can’t stop her.”
Caston was surprised at how many random emails she received from Bad Moms fans all over the world after the release of the first film. Fans would say how they could relate to what each of the Bad Moms was wearing, and thanked Caston for her efforts. But what surprised her the most was that Carla’s outfits had their own fan base and she received suggestions and pointers and where to find more Carla-esque outfits. “Its really nice to hear that these individual characters looks ring true with different types of women from Israel to Alaska to Asia.”
When Caston heard the casting of the mom’s mom of Baranski/Hines/Sarandon, she was super excited to create their individual onscreen looks. Says Caston, “For Isis/Susan Sarandon, I really wanted to give her a salt of the earth and gypsy traveler sort of feel. We repeat a lot of her clothes, and they are all very worn.” And leather, a lot of leather. Caston sourced pieces that reflected where Isis may have been. Morocco, Santa Fe, a circus, or maybe just on the road. Says Caston, “Isis is a little bohemia, a little hippie, a little rocker all rolled up into awesomeness.”
As Caston and her team came up with a look for Sandy/Cheryl Hines, it was clear the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. “There is no way not to notice that Sandy and Kiki share a lack of fashion sense. Comfort and practicality wins over style. And that Kiki-faced sweatshirt that Sandy wears is the icing on the cake.” Caston collected old childhood photos from Kristen Bell’s real life mom to get the right shot to grace the front of the Kiki faced sweatshirt Sandy wears upon her arrival for Christmas.
Christine Baranski as Ruth was a costume designer’s dream. “Ruth comes to Chicago by way of Palm Beach. When you first see her she is a bit icy, like the evil queen. Then she switches to an over the top red dress at an otherwise icy-blue Christmas party. You get the impression this perfectionist is dressed to the nines no matter what the occasion.” Ruth’s cashmere and coats confirm that she has only the finest taste in clothes. Baranski comments on her chic outfit, complete with fur collar, “I’m Christmas Barbie in this movie.”
Dressing extras for Christmas in May and June could be tough for the tireless wardrobe department. But Caston, who has been called a hoarder, had over a hundred Christmas sweaters in her own possession along with dozens of pairs of Christmas pajamas.
Says Caston, “We didn’t just stick to a red, green, and gold for the wardrobe in the film. Jon and Scott wanted things to feel more realistic and not box us in with the usual Christmas palette. This gave us a lot of freedom.”
The character of Ruth also initiates a caroling outing with her family, in which all have to dress up in costume as Dickensian characters. Caston had fun creating for this scene from the choir’s red robes, to the chimney sweep costume all the way to a hunchback costume.
In this caroling scene as various doors in the neighborhood are opened to the carolers, you may notice some familiar faces of filmmakers and crew making cameos including director Scott Moore and his real life wife and children, and also director of photography Mitchell Amundsen and his wife.
Caston recalls having the pleasure of creating looks for the sexy Santa contest scene featuring eight male strippers, and specifically a costume for Ty Swindel, fireman by day, and stripper extraordinaire by night.
Says Caston, “Each of the gorgeous men had a full Santa suit, complete with hat, boots, and a huge belt, along with a version of a hot sexy g-string or sexy underpants underneath. You walk the line in these type of costume fittings, you don’t want to be garish, but want to make it fun.”
BABY IT’S COLD? OUTSIDE
A Bad Moms Christmas takes place in Chicago in the heart of winter. So when the filmmakers thought where can we shoot a Christmas movie with tons of snow and heavy parkas? What better place than Atlanta in the late Spring/Summer!
Atlanta was home to A Bad Moms Christmas. Production began in early May 2017 and for two months the cast and crew parked themselves in interiors and exteriors all over the city. There was no stage work in the film. Only real locations were used.
The interior of Amy’s house was on Mell Avenue, and the exterior of Amy’s house on McClendon Avenue, both in the charming and friendly Atlanta suburb of Candler Park.
Says Baranski about enduring the heat in her winter wardrobe, “We were filming a scene on a front lawn in Candler Park that was decked out in fake snow, and I was in fur and woolen gloves pretending that it’s cold. It was hilarious.”
Kiki’s house took the cast and crew to Decatur, Georgia where Heatherwood Drive neighbors welcomed the production with open arms.
Meehan’s Irish Bar in downtown Atlanta became bustling during daylight hours on a weekend and doubled for the Strip Club scene.
The beautiful historic All Saints Episcopal Church, built in 1901, in midtown Atlanta became the back drop as we approached the end of the film when all three mom’s moms gathered in the pews to reflect bluntly on their relationships with their daughters.
Sky Zone in Newnan, Georgia was closed for three days to the public as A Bad Moms Christmas cast and crew and a few hundred extras took over the trampolines and played dodge ball to film a key sequence. The entire cast worked in these scenes, and enjoyed getting physical with one another with somersaults and pugil sticks.
Jon Lucas warns about the perils of trampoline parks, “Don’t do flips, by the way, if you are over the age of like fourteen, you can’t do a flip. You’re going to die. But those places are really fun, and it’s fun to see grown ups who are all very professional instantly turn into children again the minute they walk through the door.”
Harry Brooks Drive in Adams Crossing, Georgia became the exterior of Amy’s street, complete with twelve house exteriors all decorated to the tee as a snowy Christmas. This is the set location where Amy and her family venture out to go caroling at Ruth’s urging. In this very friendly neighborhood, local neighborhood moms enjoyed cocktails and wine in the streets during filming in the Bad Moms spirit, as their kids held up signs for the cast and crew that said “Merry Xmas Bad Moms.”
Carla’s house interior and exterior was shot in Smyrna, Georgia on Lake Court SE as Susan Sarandon as Isis pulls up in a semi to visit her daughter, Carla for the holidays.
Ty Swindel gets an intimate waxing from Carla inside the fictitious Okole Spa, which in reality was the posh Mandarin Oriental Spa in Buckhead, who graciously welcomed in the cast and crew after hours to shoot.
Habitat For Humanity Restore in Reynoldstown became the grocery store where Carla and Isis renew their bond, and Oglethorpe University set the stage for the PTA scene where our three moms make gingerbread houses.
I SAW MOMMY $%#*&*ING SANTA CLAUS
In the mall sequence in the film, our three original moms have a tad too much to drink at the food court and decide to take back Christmas.
This sequence took three nights to shoot and shot at three different malls in Atlanta, first at Phipps Plaza, then at Lenox Mall, and finishing up at Cumberland Mall.
Phipps Plaza Mall was chosen for its beautiful grand veranda and winding staircase. Production Designer Marcia Hinds worked with the team at Phipps and borrowed a few of their internal 30 foot to 40 foot Christmas trees. The 40 foot Christmas tree was the largest artificial Christmas tree used in the film. Storefronts and store windows at the high end Phipps Plaza Mall were decorated with Christmas décor as the Mall continued to stay open to the public.
Many patrons passing by were confused as to why this portion of the Phipps Mall was decked out for Christmas. But they went with the flow, many of them taking photos with one another in front of the large decorated trees to be used as their upcoming Christmas card.
Also shot in the wee hours of the night at Phipps Plaza was the Santa Lap dance with Amy, Kiki and Carla getting untraditional on Santa’s lap.
Says Kristen Bell, “We shot this scene at two in the morning and it was the the last shot after a really long work day. Mila, Kathryn, and I were all wondering if we were crossing the line as we got our freak on, but honestly I don’t think this is the first time Santa had a lap dance.”
After Phipps Plaza Mall, the crew moved to shoot at Lenox Mall. Lenox gave production the support of Williams-Sonoma where the threesome spikes the cider samples, and also Lady Foot Locker, from where the ladies “borrow” a silver Christmas tree laden with footwear ornaments that becomes Amy’s tree at home.
Cumberland Mall was all about shooting the Food Court after hours, where the indulgence of the three ladies is what gets them into trouble in the first place.
More than a thousand extras, described as everything from shoppers to elf helpers, were used over the course of the three days of shooting the Mall sequence. All extras came to work wearing their winter wardrobe, and then production topped it off with some hats, scarves, and shopping bags accessories.

KISS ME UNDER THE CAMELTOE
Hinds was thrilled to get the call to continue her collaboration with Jon Lucas and Scott Moore on A Bad Moms Christmas after the wild ride they shared on Bad Moms.
Shooting a Christmas movie set in Chicago, but actually filming in Atlanta in the spring and summer would have its challenges. The art department work trucks on set were spewing with stockings, ornaments, Christmas lights, shopping bags, wreaths, wrapped presents, and garland. Everything you needed to celebrate Christmas right then and there.
At Amy’s house interior, Hinds created three different looks for Christmas, redressing the set inside this practical house location several times in the middle of production shooting.
The first being Amy’s vision for Christmas before her mom, Ruth, arrives, the second being Ruth’s vision of Christmas, and the third being the mixture of the mom and daughter décor.
Says Hinds, “Amy’s Christmas palette is warm, and green, and natural while her mothers is a blanket of frozen, silver, chilly, blue sparkle, and whites that is completely over the top. And then when they do Christmas together it is a little more natural and homemade. Ruth of course thinks her décor is elegant, and even comments that her Christmas tree is from Paris.”
Ruth’s version of a full blown Christmas party was decorated by Hinds and her team, including Set Decorator Kristie Thompson, down to the smallest of details. Champagne and champagne fountains mixed with passed hors d’oeuvres and swag bags by waiters in tuxedos. Ice sculptures glistened in the blue lights with white chiffon drapery and peacock feathers, surrounding a sushi chef.
Says Kristen Bell, “In my real life we decorate our house for Christmas from toes to tits. I think I get that from my mother who keeps her Christmas tree up all year round. That’s not a joke.”
The art department office had a craft room which any chef would envy where they handmade the authentic-looking family Christmas decorations. Says Thompson, “Kiki’s house in the film is all about handmade crafty things. We had a team of people that made little Xmas tree ornaments for a week, day and night, out of popsicle sticks, pipe cleaner, and construction paper, and all the things kids would use. Kiki loved plaid, so needless to say her Christmas tree decorations reflected that too.”

OH COME ALL YE WASTED
One of the biggest challenges of the film for Hinds in conjunction with the Special Effects department was creating the exterior garish display of Ruth’s vision of the Twelve Days of Christmas on the front lawn of Amy’s house.
Lights, creatures, and mechanics made up a spectacle for all the neighbors to see. The Special Effects department for the film left no turtle dove unturned as they executed Hinds’s vision of Ruth’s “cavalcade.” The yard was jam packed with this bigger than life décor.
“We took an ‘It’s a Small World’ type of concept and spun it from there. We hand made and built from scratch multiple figurines from eight maids actually milking to eleven lords actually leaping to the ten drummer boys drumming. All of the figurines were mechanically rigged with motors by our Special Effects department and surrounded by fake snow. It was quite a sight in the middle of an Atlanta suburb in the heart of summer,” says Hinds.
Continues set decorator Kristie Thompson, “Marcia designed every inch of this cavalcade. She brought in sculptors, illustrators, and then Special Effects made it all go into motion. The mechanics of it were just brilliant.”
Says Christine Baranski, “It’s Christmas on acid. Ruth pushes it to the extreme, and keeps telling her daughter this is how Christmas should be done.”
THE THIRD NOEL
And if that wasn’t enough, the cherry on top was the live dromedary in attendance at Ruth’s Christmas bash. A one-thousand-pound female camel named Noel got the takes right, after her two male counterparts failed to do so. Scott Moore adds that having a female camel land the part was par for the course, “On our crew we tried to hire as many women as possible; the producer, the production designer, the costume designer, an editor, the first Assistant Director, we had women in the camera crew and half our post production staff was female.”
When it came to Carla’s house, she doesn’t really decorate for Christmas, but her house was a fun set to create as her living space showcased her true bohemian personality from different colorful prints and textures to candles and chimes. A turntable and rock album collection sat in an old bulky wooden wall unit, while a match collection, and possibly questionable paraphernalia sat on the coffee table.
Thompson hit the jackpot when she met someone on location in Atlanta who is a great collector of Christmas items. “We had a fantastic resource that fell in our laps, and he happened to be selling his house so we just looked thru box after box of his of Christmas items right there on the spot.”
LET’S GET FLOCKED UP
What would Christmas be without snow? Special Effects Coordinator Pete Chesney made sure there was plenty of snow to go around for filming and then some. Creating snow during the production was the icing on the cake of Hinds’s beautiful sets in all real locations, none of them built on stage.
Chesney and his team had the challenge of creating snow in the middle of the Atlanta summer. To do so they made a few different types of snow. Snow made from shredded 100% biodegradable recycled paper was used to cover large spaces. Around 1000 cubic feet of durable paper snow was blown onto and then vacuumed off of the location sets. Chesney flocked close to thirty trees during filming.
Snow that was seen close up on camera, often interacting with the cast, was made from ice. A local snow effects company came to help make 100 tons of ice snow for the filming, that would begin with block of ice that arrived in a freezer truck, exited thru a chipper, out a tube, and then shoveled onto set by a team of very strong and determined men and women. The result was flawless and often tempting for the cast and crew to throw a snowball or two at one another between takes.
JUST THE TIP
So how many Christmas trees were used all together during shooting? Both artificial and live trees were sourced by the art department totaling one hundred and twenty trees seen in the film.
The real trees were brought in from a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina. Because it was Spring/Summer during filming the trees had started developing little cones on the tips. The art department experts had to do a lot of cutting and trimming to give these trees the traditional Christmas shape. The biggest live tree in the film was featured inside the Sky Zone set, towering with pride at 18 feet.
The set decoration department had an in-house team in their warehouse just dedicated to decorating Christmas trees. This set dec team would wire the ornaments onto the tree, and wrap the whole tree in plastic to transport it to set. Because of the transport mostly plastic ornaments were used.
In the scene where Amy and Ruth fight over the Christmas tree after Ruth’s party and the tree falls and the ornaments shatter on the floor, set decorators painted the inside of the plastic ornaments so they looked like glass. Usually the interior of plastic ornaments are black, but the set decorating team worked their magic and made them look reflective.


ABOUT THE CAST
MILA KUNIS (AMY) has established herself as one of Hollywood’s most sought after, vivacious and engaging actresses. Since beginning her career in acting, she has garnered an impressive body of work that includes both major motion picture and television roles. 
Last year, Kunis was seen starring in the STX hit comedy Bad Moms opposite Kristen Bell, Christina Applegate, Kathryn Hahn and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Kunis just wrapped production on The Spy Who Dumped Me from Lionsgate in which she stars opposite Kate McKinnon.
In 2010, Kunis starred as ‘Lilly’ opposite Natalie Portman in the critically acclaimed Golden Globe and Oscar nominated supernatural drama Black Swan directed by Darren Aronofsky from Fox Searchlight. Kunis was awarded the Marcello Mastroianni Award for “Best Young Actress” for her performance in Black Swan at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. Kunis was also nominated for “Best Supporting Actress” for her performance for the 2011 SAG, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice Awards.

 

Kunis’s other notable film credits include Jupiter Ascending, Oz, The Great and Powerful, Ted, Friends with Benefits, Date Night, The Book of Eli, Extract, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Blood Ties, Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Max Payne, Third Person, and Hell and Back.

 

Kunis is best known for her roles on two of Fox’s most successful shows: “That 70’s Show” and the animated Emmy nominated show “Family Guy.” On “That 70’s Show” she played ‘Jackie Burkhart,’ which earned her two Young Star Awards for “Best Actress in a Television Series.” On “Family Guy” she is still currently the voice of ‘Meg.’

In 2015, Kunis started her production company called Orchard Farm Productions with Susan Curtis, Cameron Curtis and Lisa Sterbakov.
KRISTEN BELL (Kiki) currently stars as ‘Eleanor Shellstrop’ in the NBC series “The Good Place” with Ted Danson, which returns for a second season this Fall. She was most recently seen in the Warner Bros. film adaptation of CHIPs, opposite husband Dax Shepard, who also directed.
Bell starred as ‘Anna’ in the blockbuster Disney animated feature, Frozen which has grossed more than $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest grossing animated film and 9th highest grossing film of all time.
Last year, she starred opposite Melissa McCarthy in the Ben Falcone directed comedy The Boss, and was seen as ‘Jeannie Van Der Hooven’ in the Showtime series “House of Lies” opposite Don Cheadle, which wrapped its fifth and final season. 
In 2014, she reprised her beloved title role in Warner Brothers’ film Veronica Mars, which raised $2 million on Kickstarter in less than eleven hours and broke the record at the time for the fastest project to reach $1 million and $2 million. Bell appeared in a guest-starring arc on NBC’s hit series “Parks & Recreation.” She also played the lead role in the independent film The Lifeguard, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival as well as starring in and co-producing the comedy Hit & Run, written and directed by her husband Dax Shepard.
Her other film credits include: How to Be a Latin Lover, Movie 43, Some Girls, Writers, Big Miracle, You Again, Burlesque, When in Rome, Couples Retreat, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Pulse, Serious Moonlight and David Mamet’s Spartan. Kristen’s television credits include: “Veronica Mars,” “Unsupervised,” “Deadwood,” “Heroes,” and “Party Down.”
Her Broadway credits include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Crucible, opposite Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.  Her Off-Broadway credits include Reefer Madness and A Little Night Music.