US lacks culture to shoot Christmas films, says Hallmark boss
The United States is lacking the European cultural traditions needed to shoot Christmas films, a US Hallmark executive has suggested.
Hallmark is the producer of sentimental and formulaic “happy-ending” Christmas films.
The cheesy festive specials are increasingly being shot abroad so that US audiences can get an authentic flavour of what a proper Christmas is like, complete with pine cones, snow, roaring fires and plummy British (and Scottish, French and Italian) accents.
The movies, which almost always feature a romance line, are beloved by millennials who never gave up on the idea of a cosy Christmas love-in seen in the likes of The Holiday and Love Actually.
Lisa Hamilton Daly, the head of programming at Hallmark Media, said that an increasing number of its festive movies were based in Europe.
She told The New York Times that shooting some of the US network’s films in European locations “gives us more cultural traditions to dig into”.
The executive producer, known for films such as Paris Can Wait and Lila & Eve, added that Hallmark’s audience “love to travel with us” to destinations such as Scotland, France and Italy.
Dustin Rikert, director of the network’s new film A Merry Scottish Christmas, which centres on estranged siblings in a castle in Scotland, added: “US audiences may not always be able to go to these exotic foreign lands.”
The channel’s love-centric branding, in keeping with Hallmark’s multi-billion-dollar card manufacturing, means that it annually tops the ratings charts as people in the US tune in to the cable network for the festive period.
Last December, which is a peak ratings month for Hallmark, the channel – which is only available to viewers in the US – averaged around 1.3 million viewers, one of the highest ratings on entertainment cable TV in the country.
UK viewers can stream the movies on Amazon Prime.
Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” movie slate begins as early as October and annually pushes out Hallmark’s new festive offerings, which includes Christmas in Notting Hill, My Norwegian Holiday and A Royal Corgi Christmas.
Ms Daly said the network is releasing 42 new festive films this year, with more European destinations in the pipeline for the 2024 Hallmark movie slate.
She added that their predictable nature fuels the genre’s popularity, saying: “The formula exists for a very good reason. It makes people happy.”
