Jennifer Aniston will play a single mother fighting for custody of her son against her ex-husband — Santa Claus — in Naughty, a comedy directed by Olivia Wilde for Universal, with a theatrical release dated for November 5, 2027 (Variety).

Peter Dinklage plays the Claus himself. The plot, per Variety's report on July 28, 2026, centres on Mallory, a single mom whose only hope of securing custody of her son from her gaslighting ex is to track down Santa and convince him to testify in her divorce hearing. The logline alone — a custody battle where the estranged husband lives at the North Pole — is the kind of high-concept hook that studios build holiday corridors around.

Jimmy Warden wrote the screenplay from his original spec script — a spec being a script written on the writer's own initiative before any studio commitment, rather than commissioned for hire. Warden also produces alongside Wilde and LuckyChap, the production company behind Barbie and Promising Young Woman. Aniston rounds out the producing team as well, per Variety.

Deadline first reported the casting update; Variety confirmed and added detail on the plot, producers, and release date the same day.

Universal has planted the film squarely in early November 2027, ahead of the Thanksgiving corridor — the window when holiday-themed releases traditionally open to capitalise on family audiences and long legs at the box office. The date gives the film roughly 16 months of runway from announcement to release, a standard timeline for a studio comedy with name talent above and below the line.

Wilde's last film as director, Don't Worry Darling, opened to $19.4 million domestic — the United States and Canada — on its way to $87.3 million worldwide for Warner Bros. in 2022. Dinklage, fresh off his long run as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, has balanced indie work with studio projects including Cyrano (2021) and The Toxic Avenger (2023). Aniston remains one of the most reliably bankable comedy leads in the business, with a career spanning from Friends to Murder Mystery 2, which drew sizable audiences on Netflix in 2023.

For audiences, the pitch is straightforward: a comedy that turns the mythology of Santa Claus inside out, built around two stars whose comic instincts rarely misfire and a director who has shown she can handle a room full of big personalities. Universal's bet is that the combination lands as counter-programming holiday fare — funny, a little sharp, and arriving just as audiences start thinking about the season.