Warner Bros. Pictures Animation is bringing Christmas in July to theater fans with the news that Cole Escola has joined the cast of its upcoming animated holiday musical-comedy Margie Claus, starring Melissa McCarthy. The film is directed by Kirk DeMicco (The Croods, Vivo, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken) from a screenplay by Ben Falcone and Damon Jones.
Logline: When Santa goes missing Christmas Eve, his wife Margie Claus has to assemble a rag-tag team of long-retired reindeer to rescue Santa and save Christmas.
McCarthy and Falcone are producing through their On the Day Productions banner (Tammy, The Boss, Thunder Force), alongside Michelle Wong, who is boarding the project after recently producing the smash-hit KPop Demon Hunters.
Margie Claus will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures Animation on November 5, 2027.
Cole Escola is a comedian, actor and writer who most recently starred in the smash hit Broadway play Oh, Mary!, which they also wrote, and for which Escola received the 2025 Tony award for Best Performance by Actor for a Lead Role in a Play. The play has broken box office records at the Lyceum Theatre and received two Tony Award nominations, a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Citation, a Drama Desk Award, a Theatre World Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards and an Obie Award. The play was also named a 2025 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama.
Escola recently appeared in the HBO Max series Fantasmas. They previoulsy starred in and wrote on Difficult People for Hulu, and they wrote and frequently appeared on Ziwe for Showtime. They also received a 2020 Writers Guild Award for Comedy/Variety Sketch Series for their work writing and starring on At Home with Amy Sedaris for TruTV. Escola had recurring roles on Man Seeking Woman for FXX, Search Party for HBO, Girl Boss for Netflix, and Mozart in the Jungle for Prime Video. Escola was the co-creator, writer, and star of Jeffrey and Cole Casserole for LogoTV. Escola worked as a writer on Hacks for HBO Max, The Other Two for HBO Max, and Life & Beth for Hulu.
Escola was named the Best Sketch Comic of 2020 by the New York Times for their self-produced special, Help! I’m Stuck!, which they filmed alone in their apartment during quarantine. It can be found on their YouTube. They were also named one of Vanity Fair’s 25 Best Performances of 2023 for their special Our Home Out West.
Escola is represented by Rise Management and UTA.
View this post on Instagram
Win 'Grave of the Fireflies' LE SteelBook! 
