It hasn’t been a good year at the box office — especially for live-action comedies. Over the past 15 months, only three films in the genre — “Bad Moms,” the “Ghostbusters” reboot and “Girls Trip” — were able to crack $100 million in domestic ticket sales.

This is what Suzanne Todd, the producer of “Bad Moms,” has been constantly reminded of in the wake of her film’s success. Yes, the R-rated flick made more money at the multiplex than anyone in the industry had anticipated: $183 million worldwide following its July 2016 release. But given the failure of so many other comedies, what if the film’s success was a fluke? Was it really a good idea to take the risk on a sequel?

“Especially when — gasp! — we wanted to add three stars who were over the age of 35,” Todd said with a laugh.

The first “Bad Moms” followed three mothers — played by Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn — who initially feel inferior to the PTA-attending, bake sale-organizing parents at their kids’ school. But after the trio form a friendship, they relish in their “bad” parenting skills, learning to embrace their supposed imperfections. The sequel, “A Bad Moms Christmas,” adds three bad grandmothers to the mix, those over-35 stars: Susan Sarandon, Cheryl Hines and Christine Baranski — who arrive in town just in time to judge their daughters’ parenting over the holidays.

The second film came together incredibly fast. Following the success of the original, writer-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (the screenwriters who launched “The Hangover” franchise) began working on a screenplay last September — just two months after “Bad Moms” hit theaters. They finished it within a matter of weeks and in December, STX Films announced the sequel was a go. “A Bad Moms Christmas” went into production in April — less than a year after the first one was released — and the movie opens Nov. 1. [Source]