Hallmark Channel Christmas movies have become a surprising juggernaut, drawing tens of millions of viewers yearly worldwide. While Hollywood becomes ever more complex, Hallmark uses a simple stroke to keep viewers returning every holiday season. With familiar stories and a rock-solid brand, the family-friendly channel consistently turns shoestring budgets into massive successes. A decade after the phenomenon began to take shape, Hallmark Christmas movies boast an ROI that would make most movie producers blush.
The rise of Hallmark Christmas movies
The made-for-TV Christmas phenomenon got its start with ABC Family, which targeted holiday crowds through its “25 Days of Christmas” in the 1990s, Mental Floss reports. When ABC Family began to focus on other programming, the Hallmark Channel started filling the void after its official launch in 2001. By 2017, Hallmark was rolling out up to 33 original movies for the holiday season, each with a production price tag of about $2 million, according to Business Insider.
Since then, the tradition has laid firm roots and is now must-see programming for much of the English-speaking world. What began primarily as an American phenomenon has spread rapidly, with Hallmark Christmas movies now popular throughout Canada and Europe, An Historian About Town reports. With Hallmark now extending the season into October, audiences have about two months of continuous original Christmas content every year.
Inside the hectic production of Hallmark’s Christmas lineup
By concentrating on straightforward stories about finding love around the holidays, Hallmark has essentially streamlined the production process.
According to an anonymous producer speaking with Vancouver Magazine, the typical production schedule is a masterclass in cranking out content. Producers might start the planning process in mid-August and begin shooting a movie by October, with filming typically expected to take only a couple of weeks. Including the editing process, the entire end-to-end production tends to wrap in less than three months.
While sidestepping some union laws and taking advantage of special tax considerations, producers can keep the budget remarkably thin. Although Business Insider’s breakdown suggests a $2 million average price, the producer who anonymously spoke with Vancouver Magazine says budgets often are kept under $1 million in Canadian dollars — about $725,000 in US dollars. Going further, the anonymous insider explained that the risk-reward dynamic for such a movie is outstanding, saying, “Worst-case scenario, they’re breaking even.”
The production calculus is similar to some Hollywood giants who have related on tight production schedules and low budgets. The classic example is Clint Eastwood, who famously filmed the smash hit Gran Torino in only five weeks in 2008 on a tiny budget of $25 million (via The Numbers). But even the legendary quick-working Eastwood can’t compare with the Hallmark blueprint, which typically requires that filming and editing take only about a month of the entire process. Even the indie sensation My Big Fat Greek Wedding cost $5 million to produce (in 2001 dollars) and three times longer to film than the typical Hallmark Christmas movie (per The Numbers).
On the flip side, a Hollywood tentpole has a production process that is the opposite of Hallmark’s model. For example, Jurassic World took about five years from concept to the film’s premiere while costing hundreds of millions of dollars for production and marketing, according to Filmmaking Lifestyle.
Balancing the traditional brand with new expectations
Instead of relying on a bloated marketing budget, Hallmark merely uses brand recognition alongside a few familiar faces to pitch new content each year. One of the most effective promoters was Candace Cameron Bure, the Full house and Fuller House actor Vox dubbed “the queen of Hallmark Christmas movies.”
However, since helping carry the Hallmark torch, Cameron Bure has jumped ship for rival network GAC Family, directly competing with Hallmark in the Christmas movie space.
Hallmark doesn’t just have competition from GAC Family either. While jumping headlong into production, Netflix has begun to build a reliable stream of holiday content that picks up where Hallmark leaves off. Although Vox pointed out that Hallmark has a mixed record of cast diversity, Netflix is embracing feel-good stories that feature main characters from LGTBQ and non-white communities. As explained by Vancouver Magazine’s insider, Netflix is filming stories that are difficult to impossible to produce with Hallmark.
As Hallmark slowly adds diversity to its lineup, its Christmas movie brand remains as popular as ever heading into the 2022 holiday season. The channel has 39 new Christmas movies and one Hanukkah-themed release slated to air in time for the holidays this year.
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