Christmas Motion pictures on TV: Candace Cameron Bure and Others Money in Huge

Candace Cameron Bure was the undisputed queen of Hallmark Channel’s slate of fashionable vacation fare, with greater than 30 credit to her identify. Who might overlook her work as a high-strung physician who strikes to Alaska in “Christmas Underneath Wraps”? OK, simply since you haven’t heard of it, doesn’t imply it wasn’t an enormous hit. The 2014 made-for-TV film has the excellence of being essentially the most watched Hallmark Christmas particular ever, touchdown virtually 6 million viewers on its debut airing. (In actual fact, she stars in 4 of Hallmark’s high 10 most-watched Christmas premieres.) So, when Bure, 46, cut up with Hallmark to join rival upstart cable network GAC (now Great American Family) earlier this 12 months, not even Santa himself might cheer up Hallmark. 

The brains behind this Christmas steal wasn’t the Grinch. As an alternative, it was Nice American Media president and CEO Invoice Abbott, the previous chief of Hallmark Channel’s father or mother firm, who stepped down from his earlier submit in 2020 after he confronted backlash for yanking a business that includes a same-sex couple. How did Abbott pull off such an enormous rent? By exhibiting her the cash. Sources inform Selection that Bure, whose contract ended across the time Great American Family was launching, was making round $1 million a 12 months for her unique Hallmark deal, which, at one level, included at the very least two films a 12 months. Nice American Household was in a position to practically double that.

“The largest factor about Christmas films generally is that individuals make enjoyable of them — and but individuals love them,” Bure says. “It’s as a result of they’re predictable: You realize that somebody’s going to fall in love. You realize it’s simply going to be joyful and heat. And folks run to that, particularly on the holidays.” 

Bure’s position isn’t simply starring in new tasks, but additionally now as an government on the firm, tasked with producing her personal empire of Christmas films. The primary undertaking on her slate is “A Christmas … Present,” the place Bure will play an actual property agent who’s celebrating the vacations along with her not too long ago widowed brother. In response to Abbott, she “understands what the viewers likes and what the viewers doesn’t like, and that understanding for us is so crucial to our success.” 

Abbott didn’t initially suppose the film was a match. “It’s not the everyday Christmas film that we’d do that’s essentially what has been profitable, even for her, up to now. But, I’ve a number of confidence in her,” he says. “It’s life-affirming and makes you recognize what you have got and can give individuals nice hope in actually viewing what they’ve in a little bit little bit of a special approach by means of a special lens. She was 100% proper. I used to be approach off.”

Bure grew up in a conservative family in Panorama Metropolis, the daughter of a expertise supervisor and a gymnasium instructor. Her brother, Kirk Cameron, an outspoken Evangelical Christian, starred in “Rising Pains” as a young person, however deserted a standard Hollywood profession trajectory to star within the faith-based “Left Behind” films. He stoked controversy in 2012 for saying being homosexual is “unnatural.” However, Bure, who’s a religious Christian and a conservative, hasn’t waded into politics as a lot, regardless of her stint as a co-host on “The View.” She’s near her youngsters — Natasha, 24; Lev, 22; and Maksim, 20 — and has mentioned up to now that she’s interested in telling the faith-based tales she shares with them. It’s not stunning, then, that Bure understands Nice American Media’s viewers.

Issues have modified within the vacation programming world up to now few years. Whereas red-and-green decor alerts to all that the Christmas season is right here, should you’re on this enterprise, you’re seeing solely inexperienced. In 2021 alone, there have been 144 TV films within the months main as much as the vacation, with Netflix, CBS, ION, UPtv and OWN all throwing their Santa hats into the ring. This 12 months, Nice American Household is making ready to roll out 17 originals. UPtv additionally has 17, Hallmark shall be producing 40 and Lifetime has 26.

And this comeback for the style is not simply on cable networks; each community has its personal technique. CBS, for instance, has three authentic films coming this season highlighting the community’s expertise as Amanda Kloots (“The Speak”) and Liza Lapira (“The Equalizer), star reverse Paul Greene and Neal Bledsoe, respectively, males who’ve led vacation films for Hallmark Channel. (Bledsoe and Greene will each additionally seem on Nice American Household as effectively this 12 months, pulling double obligation.) In the meantime, Lifetime is bringing in legends this 12 months, with films starring Rita Moreno, Patti LaBelle and Jane Seymour.

Made-for-TV vacation films have grow to be a pop-culture punchline, however for actors, they’re a strategy to make comparatively quick cash. A feminine lead actor could make as much as $300,000 per film that takes three weeks to movie, whereas a male lead could make near $200,000. For years, Hallmark was the highest payer for vacation programming, however that’s modified.

When Netflix got here into the sport, it was keen to up the ante. Since its total budgets are greater than double what cable networks have, it’s in a position to land stars like Dolly Parton, Goldie Hawn, Vanessa Hudgens, Kurt Russell and Rob Lowe. One supply tells Selection that whereas a few of these films had been pitched elsewhere, Netflix was the one place in a position to pay greater main stars, usually shelling out paychecks of greater than $1 million per movie.

“Over the previous 5 years, we’ve constructed a large library of Netflix vacation reveals and movies and a confirmed devoted viewers who return 12 months after 12 months to look at each our new vacation choices — in addition to revisit their previous favorites like ‘The Princess Change’ and ‘Christmas Chronicles’ franchises,” says Christina Rogers, director of impartial movie at Netflix.

This 12 months, the streamer has six authentic vacation films within the pipeline, all with large stars hooked up, together with Lindsay Lohan, Emma Thompson, Olivia Colman and Justin Hartley — all expertise that doesn’t come low-cost.

And the enterprise of Christmas films can result in different sources of revenue. Now, very like Comedian-Con and different fan conventions, the actors can earn cash by signing autographs and taking photographs with followers. Christmas Con launched in 2019, with 20 movie star friends and 9,000 attendees; in 2021, attendees went as much as 12,000. Along with pricy day passes, followers can participate in knowledgeable photograph opps with stars like Lacey Chabert, Danica McKellar or Jesse Metcalfe, or purchase an autograph for $80. Plus, every actor is paid a assured fee to attend for the weekend — which could be wherever from $10,000 to $75,000.

RomaDrama, which launched in 2021, is an unique fan expertise that options actors of Christmas films, flies expertise first-class and offers followers the chance to pay $400 for a five-minute sit-down chat with their favourite stars. Plus, followers have the possibility to talk with award-winning authors and screenwriters with expertise within the rom-com world.

However within the Christmas recreation, nobody is greater than Bure. In fact, she received her begin because the beloved DJ Tanner on “Full Home” at 11 — a job she performed till she was 18. She then took a break from performing and, at 20, married former Russian NHL hockey participant Valeri Bure and began a household. Ten years later, she “got here again with a vengeance.” That comeback started on the Hallmark Channel. 

“Invoice gave me my first shot after taking a really lengthy hiatus from work,” says Bure, who made her Hallmark debut in “Moonlight and Mistletoe” in 2008. “I’ll all the time be grateful to him for that.” However her return from full-time motherhood was simply the beginning for Bure at Hallmark Media. In complete, she appeared in 30 films and hosted the annual “Countdown to Christmas” specials. 

Although she finally started producing on the community, she took on some meaty aspect gigs, together with “Dancing With the Stars” and “The View,” the place she sat on the Scorching Subjects desk from 2015 to 2016. Although she liked being a chat present host, she didn’t like dishing about politics in public. On ABC’s “Behind the Desk” podcast, in 2021, she mentioned, “I didn’t wish to be the punching bag for the subsequent 4 years in that conservative seat.” Nonetheless, she will think about going again. “I might like to do a chat present once more,” she says. “However I don’t wish to do a political speak present. That wasn’t that enjoyable.” 

“The View” was a chance she jumped at after saying “a number of nos.” She says she booked one other TV present that aired for “many, a few years,” however modified her thoughts final minute because it’d be too robust to steadiness filming along with her household time.  

Not like most youngster stars, Bure has discovered methods to proceed to maintain her model related. She has written 11 books, launched her personal clothes line, has partnered with Dr. Lancer Skincare and with Christian items firm DaySpring to remain linked to her religion. But, Christmas films are what she’s finest identified for now — which is why her departure from Hallmark was met with such curiosity. It comes after Abbott left the channel in a hail of controversy. 

Inside a 12 months of exiting Hallmark, Abbott had arrange a extra conservative competitor — in June 2021, he partnered with Hicks Fairness Companions on GAC Media, a brand new firm that had acquired Nice American Household. (The agency’s founder, Thomas Hicks, is an in depth pal of Donald Trump and co-chair of the Republican Nationwide Committee.)

Bure isn’t the one Hallmark staple who Abbott has introduced with him to the brand new firm. In 2014, he launched the “Kitten Bowl” on Hallmark, working intently with animal-rights activist Beth Stern, who’s married to Howard Stern, to assist discover cats and kittens their eternally houses. Whereas the community discontinued the particular, which has facilitated greater than 75,000 shelter pet adoptions since its launch, it will move to Great American Family in February 2023, and has been renamed because the “Nice American Rescue Bowl.”   

Abbott and Bure hope to bring “The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries” film series, a franchise Bure has led since its 2015 debut, to their new residence. “The world that she created round Aurora Teagarden was one thing very particular, and definitely one thing we’d love nothing greater than to do extra of,” he says. Bure provides, “It’s about placing puzzle items collectively, but it surely’s very doable.”  

Bure may additionally reunite with a well-known face on the community: Her “Full Home” aunt, Lori Loughlin. A particular final Christmas marked Loughlin’s return to performing following her 2019 arrest and subsequent incarceration within the faculty admissions scandal. She additionally has a long-standing relationship with Abbott, having appeared in 16 “Storage Sale Thriller” movies for Hallmark Motion pictures & Mysteries earlier than the community reduce ties along with her amid the scandal. Now, Abbott hopes to rebuild that relationship and finally have Loughlin as one of many faces of Nice American Household. They speak thrice per week, he says, and are presently in search of the proper script for her to steer. 

“She’s America’s sweetheart, no matter no matter occurred,” Abbott says. “On the finish of the day, she represents all that’s optimistic about leisure, and has had a stellar profession — not solely on display screen, but additionally the way in which she’s performed herself personally, when it comes to being somebody who has a observe document of doing the proper factor on the earth at massive, other than no matter occurred. She’s beloved and for good purpose. We’re very pleased with our affiliation along with her and wish to make her a part of the material.” 

Because it seems, that material isn’t so totally different from the one which he championed at Hallmark earlier than he left in a cloud of controversy. 

Bure says that whereas there are similarities, Nice American Household’s content material will extra strongly symbolize religion and pleasure in nation. However to this point, the community hasn’t adopted the business traits of hiring expertise from numerous backgrounds. At Lifetime, 60% of the unique 2022 films are written by ladies, and other people of coloration make up 54% of the channel’s main solid members. Sixty-seven % of its vacation film originals function individuals of coloration and/or LGBTQ leads. In the meantime, Hallmark Motion pictures & Mysteries has tailored the corporate’s Mahogany card model into TV films, telling tales by means of the lens of Black tradition. 

“Individuals really feel like we at the moment are a house the place they’ll deliver tasks to us, and that’s enormous,” says Wonya Lucas, Hallmark CEO and president. “All it’s a must to do is take a look at our viewers composition of African American ladies previous to my getting there. African American ladies watch 50% extra tv than another demographic, and we had been largely lacking out on that.”  

Nonetheless, whereas Abbott could also be manufacturing the type of Christmas his viewers are clinging to, he says he believes that range and inclusion are vital for Nice American Household. “Generally we’re not considered by people who find themselves actually good at these storylines and so we have now to go search them… In rising this enterprise, it’s a lot a a lot heavier elevate than I ever thought. I knew it was going to be onerous, however not this difficult. And so, we’ll get there, but it surely’s not an in a single day factor.”

Abbott says that Nice American Household is specializing in Christmas for now as a result of he isn’t being pitched tales that remember different faiths. “Over time, I believe we have now the chance to do this,” he says. “We don’t have the luxurious of getting 30 individuals in growth having the ability to take conferences with a number of totally different individuals. We take as many as we are able to, however time is proscribed within the day.”  

Bure provides, “I believe we all know the core viewers and what they love is strictly how Invoice initially constructed the Hallmark Channel. That was Christmas and people conventional holidays, in order that’s what the main target goes to be. You’ve received to begin someplace. You possibly can’t do every part directly.”