Violent Night Hits No. 3 on Max Before the Sequel

Violent Night sits at No. 3 on HBO Max’s worldwide movie list dated September 18, 2026, with 176 points in FlixPatrol’s count. It does not appear on the same service’s U.S. movie top 10. American subscribers who want David Harbour’s Santa are being sent to Netflix, while the sequel is already being sold in theaters for December 4, 2026.

That split is the story the global ranking hides. Universal’s 2022 Christmas action comedy is a catalog title with different owners in different countries, and the September heat is arriving on more than one app.

The Global No. 3 Title Is Not on U.S. HBO Max

FlixPatrol’s HBO Max worldwide movie chart for September 18 puts Milly Alcock’s Supergirl first with 556 points and Practical Magic second with 210. Violent Night is next, ahead of Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Band of Brothers: Legacy, The 5th Wave, 3:10 to Yuma, Altered, Sniper: No Nation, and Clown in a Cornfield.

The U.S. list on the same day is a different movie. Supergirl still leads, then Fuze, The Revenant, and Practical Magic. Violent Night is not in that ten. Practical Magic can be a global and American Max title at once because Warner’s service actually carries it in the United States. Harbour’s Santa does not get that treatment at home.

WHERE THE SEPTEMBER 18 CHART SPLITS

FlixPatrol’s country snapshot of No. 1 movies that day is almost all Supergirl. Violent Night’s 176 points are the sum of mid-list finishes across the markets where Max holds the license, not a run of national first-place titles. A worldwide bronze medal can look like a platform-wide craze until you open the American board.

Netflix Holds the American Streaming Window

JustWatch’s United States page, checked on September 18, 2026 across 369 services, lists Violent Night for subscription viewing on Netflix and Netflix Standard with Ads. Rent and buy options sit on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. HBO Max is not in that U.S. lineup, which matches the blank space on the U.S. HBO Max movie ranking.

Netflix’s own listing frames the plot in one line: when mercenaries rob a wealthy family’s mansion on Christmas Eve, they meet Santa Claus. Harbour stars with John Leguizamo and Beverly D’Angelo. The runtime is 112 minutes, and the MPA rating is R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, and some sexual references.

Americans who want a refresher before the sequel are not hunting a Max row. They can stream Violent Night on Netflix in the same weeks that overseas Max subscribers are pushing it up a global movie list. Universal already ran this play once, sending its films through a home-video window after theaters; the 2026 version of that split just happens to put the U.S. copy on Netflix while Max works the international side.

A $20 Million Santa Opened to $13.45 Million

This is not a rescue of a bomb. Box Office Mojo’s ledger shows a $76,004,405 worldwide box office against a $20 million production budget, about 3.8 times the shoot cost before marketing. Domestic ticket sales were $50,057,405, or 65.9 percent of the global total. International added $25,947,000.

Universal opened the film in the United States on December 2, 2022, after an earliest overseas date of November 30 and a New York Comic Con premiere on October 7. The first weekend took in $13,450,240 from 3,682 theaters, good for second place behind Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The widest count was 3,723 theaters. Home video followed on January 20, 2023, and The Numbers estimates $4,945,796 in domestic disc sales, $1,506,900 on DVD and $3,438,896 on Blu-ray.

THE 2022 THEATRICAL LEDGER

• Budget: $20 million, from Universal’s production outlay reported with the release.
• Opening: $13,450,240 in 3,682 U.S. theaters on the December 2 weekend.
• Domestic share: $50,057,405, which is 65.9 percent of the worldwide gross.
• Audience grade: a B+ CinemaScore, with PostTrak at 76 percent positive on opening weekend.

Critics were warmer than the mixed Metacritic average of 55 from 37 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes posts a 74 percent score from 215 reviews and an 88 percent audience score, with a 6.5 average. The critics consensus calls it less wild than the pitch and still a lot of fun for harder holiday fare. Tommy Wirkola, the Norwegian director of Dead Snow, shot Harbour as a worn-out immortal who parks a sleigh on a rich family’s roof and walks into a hostage job led by Leguizamo’s Scrooge.

Trailers for the Sequel Are Already in Theaters

The catalog bump is arriving beside a trailer that has been in front of other movies since Universal posted it on August 4, 2026. People walking into Resident Evil and similar bookings in mid-September keep clocking Violent Night 2 in the preshow, and the complaint that it shows too much of the plot is already part of the chatter. That is a theatrical campaign, not a quiet library revival.

Universal’s copy is blunt. “If you’re nice, you get presents from the Big Guy. If you’re naughty, you get justice.” Harbour is back as Santa for 87North, the company David Leitch and Kelly McCormick built on John Wick, Bullet Train, The Fall Guy, Atomic Blonde, and Nobody. Wirkola returns, as do writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller. The film is due in theaters December 4.

The new story leaves the mansion siege behind. Not-so-jolly Saint Nick, sapped of his magic and stuck around the Silver Bell Mall, has to take on a gangster while calling in Mrs. Claus. Principal photography ran in Winnipeg from September 2, 2025, to October 15, 2025.

NEW FACES IN THE SEQUEL

• Kristen Bell: Mrs. Claus, sold as the reinforcement no henchman wants to meet.
• Jared Harris: Mason, the gangster squeezing the mall’s merchants.
• Joe Pantoliano: a veteran added to the criminal side of the ensemble.
• Daniela Melchior, Andrew Bachelor, and Maxwell Friedman: the rest of the billed newcomers, with Friedman coming from AEW and The Iron Claw.

Wrestling fans spotted Friedman in the trailer first. The rest of the sell is Harbour in the red coat again, now with Bell in a fitted Mrs. Claus look and a mall full of goons instead of a single house.

Where HBO Max Licensed the 2022 Film

FlixPatrol’s streaming map is the mechanical reason a Universal title can be a Max hit without being on Max in America. The tracker lists Violent Night on HBO Max in a band of Latin American countries, including Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil’s neighbors, plus Balkan markets such as Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hungary and Thailand are on the same list. The United States is not.

That is a license patch, not a taste test. Warner’s service can wring September plays out of a Christmas movie in countries where it bought the catalog rights. Netflix can do the same job in the United States. Both feeds still advertise the same December opening. The “HBO Max users worldwide” line flattens those deals into one crowd.

The original film itself is a home-invasion comedy with a body count. Mercenaries hit a family compound for a $300 million vault on Christmas Eve. Santa, who in this version is a former Viking, becomes the last adult willing to fight. Leah Brady’s Trudy is the child who still believes, and the set dressing (a sledgehammer, a star from the nativity, a candy cane) does the damage the title promises.

Kristen Bell Joins Harbour for December 4

Harbour’s December is stacked. Violent Night 2 opens on December 4, 2026. Avengers: Doomsday follows on December 18, 2026, with Harbour again as Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian, in what the studio has billed as his third MCU feature. The Santa trailer and the superhero campaign will share the same month of multiplexs, which is why replies under the August trailer kept joking that the same man is about to fight Doctor Doom in a different coat.

Wirkola said after the first film that it never showed the North Pole, Mrs. Claus, or the elves, and that some of those ideas had been cut for cost. The sequel is the pass where those pieces come back, with Bell as the on-screen answer to the role Harbour had floated in interviews as far back as 2022. 87North stays the action shop; Leitch and McCormick produce again.

FROM THE FIRST WEEKEND TO THE SEQUEL DATE

1. October 7, 2022: Premieres at New York Comic Con.
2. December 2, 2022: Opens wide in the United States on 3,682 screens.
3. January 20, 2023: Hits home video through Universal.
4. September 2, 2025: Violent Night 2 starts shooting in Winnipeg.
5. October 15, 2025: Sequel photography wraps after 43 days.
6. August 4, 2026: Universal posts the official sequel trailer.
7. September 18, 2026: The original sits at No. 3 on Max worldwide and off the U.S. Max movie ten.
8. December 4, 2026: Violent Night 2 opens in U.S. theaters.

The 43-day Winnipeg shoot is already a year in the rear view. What is new in September is the ranking, the trailer in front of other people’s movies, and the split in who owns the first film on subscription.

September Heat for a Christmas Sequel

Practical Magic, sitting one slot above Violent Night on the global Max movie list, is running a cleaner version of the same calendar. The 1998 film is on Max in the United States, a sequel is in theaters, and the catalog title does not have to hop to a rival app for American viewers. Violent Night has the harder map: Netflix at home, Max abroad, and a new R-rated Christmas movie still 11 weeks from its date if you count from September 18.

The ranking will move tomorrow. The license map will not. Anyone in the United States who wants Harbour’s Santa before December 4 already knows which app has him. Everyone else is watching a worldwide bronze medal that was never an American Max story to begin with.