‘A Christmas Story’ Bully Explains How The Sequel Finally Got Made

Today HBO Max debuted one of the most-anticipated movies of the holiday season—A Christmas Story Christmas, a sequel to the classic 1983 film A Christmas Story that TBS airs on a loop for 24 hours at Christmastime. You’ll shoot your eye out, tongue frozen to a flagpole, the leg lamp—the film spawned so many classic moments.

So why in the world did it take 39 years to make a sequel?

Zack Ward, who played infamous bully Scut Farkus in the original and returns for the new one, says attempts were made over the years to reunite the original cast in a new film. But none had the same spirit as the original.

“There have been a lot of attempts to do a sequel, but the scripts just were trying to imitate what happened in the first one. They felt cheesy. And Peter Billingsley [who starred as Ralphie in the original] needed to be attached and at the heart of it. He was either busy, or the script wasn’t right, so he passed,” Ward says.

What made the difference for the HBO Max version? “The script. Nick Schenk got ahold of it, and his version had the heart of the first without being trite. He wasn’t trying to imitate the exact same beats and moments as the original. It didn’t feel like it was a weak facsimile of the original,” Ward says.

Actually, there were a couple attempts at new Christmas Story movies over the years, but it was hard to count them as true successors.

There was one made in 1994, called A Summer Story, but the cast was different—kids grow, after all, and the original was made in 1983. The sequel took place just a few months after the first, so the child stars were all a decade too old. Summer received decent reviews but didn’t muster a big audience. Another movie, A Christmas Story 2, a 2012 film, wasn’t based on the same Jean Shepherd stories as the original and sequel, and once again relied on a new cast. The reviews were poor.

The new HBO Max movie features Billingsley, Ward and a couple other original cast members, giving it a firm connection to the first one. It’s set 30 years after the original—in 1973. Ralphie’s mom is a widow, and he brings his family home to visit her for Christmas.

“It’s all the same people as the original, but they’re grown up, with more experience, just like we are in real life,” says Ward. “I think that’s the brilliance of the original movie—you can watch it as a child or a grownup and enjoy it. It grows with you, and you see different things as you grow up.”

When you have your breakout role as a child, it can be difficult to earn recognition for anything else. Billingsley will always be recognized as Ralphie, and Ward is always identified with Farkus, though he has done many things since in his career, including roles on Lost, Mike & Molly and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He recently wrote, directed and produced the movie Patsy Lee & The Keepers Of The 5 Kingdoms starring George Takei.

But he knows Farkus remains his claim to fame, and he’s put that to great use raising money for causes dear to his heart. He makes annual appearances at the home in Cleveland where A Christmas Story takes place, and he has raised money for bullying prevention efforts (yes, he appreciates the irony) and, currently, for the Alzheimer’s Association. His father has the disease, and Ward says, “It’s brutal. Alzheimer’s sucks, and if possible, we should beat it up and get rid of it.”

He’ll be making his Cleveland appearance on Dec. 17 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., a month after Story’s debut.