Fred Claus

Fred Claus is the older brother of Santa Claus, and the two have been out of touch for years. Growing up in his brother Nick's shadow left Fred bitter and skeptical about Christmas, and as an adult he has little to show for himself. When Fred gets into trouble and needs money, Nick agrees to help him, but only if Fred comes to the North Pole and works in the toy workshop. Fred is hardly suited to life as an elf, and his arrival causes friction with his brother. At the same time, an efficiency expert is evaluating the North Pole operation and threatens to shut down Christmas entirely, leaving the estranged brothers to work together.

David Dobkin directed the film, his fourth feature after Clay Pigeons, Shanghai Knights and Wedding Crashers, from a screenplay by Dan Fogelman. Vince Vaughn plays Fred, with Paul Giamatti as Nick, Miranda Richardson as Annette Claus, Rachel Weisz as Wanda Blinkowski and Kathy Bates as Mother Claus. Joel Silver, Jessie Nelson and Dobkin produced the Warner Bros. release, which runs 115 minutes.

The film received a critics' rating of 4.3 out of 10 from 143 reviews, while audiences gave it 5.6 on IMDb from over 46,000 votes and 5.9 on TMDB from more than 900 votes. Against a budget of 100 million dollars, it grossed 98 million dollars worldwide.