There are always a couple of movies a year that arrive around the holidays to cash in on the public’s general warm fuzzies. And although a fair number of them end up being forgettable, the holiday movie is an incredibly lucrative business if you can manage to make one that people will want to watch over and over again. The end of the year is a time for viewing traditions, all of which should absolutely include Die Hard, and studios will always want to add another to their rotations.
Last year, The Night Before took the typical themes of personal reflection and the affirmations of friendship during the holidays and filtered them through an alarming litany of drugs. For 2016, in a similarly anarchic vein, comes the ensemble comedy Office Christmas Party. Built around the evergreen comic theme of watching your coworkers get too drunk as daily quarrels come to a head in a closed environment, the movie follows three employees (Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, and T.J. Miller) who’re given an ultimatum by their boss (Jennifer Aniston): land a big account in the clutch, or the business is shutting down. To do this, they decide to throw a rager in their Chicago office, only to lose control of the situation when the office party turns into the Chicago nightlife event of the year.
Above all, the film’s latest trailer proves that Office Christmas Party has assembled a pretty notable cast to stand out from the festive pack; aside from the aforementioned, the film also stars Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Rob Corddry, Randall Park, and a host of other familiar faces. Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck (best known as the team responsible for Blades of Glory), Office Christmas Party will be released on December 9th.
