Hallmark Channel is leaning on its Kansas City roots — and the world-famous romance between music star Taylor Swift and soccer participant Travis Kelce — to attain throughout its profitable season of Christmas TV motion pictures .
For greater than a decade, viewers have embraced the cable channel’s “Countdown to Christmas”-themed programming: dozens of low-budget motion pictures that start rolling out in mid-October and play just about across the clock. Saturday, Hallmark boosts its programming with “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story” — one in every of two cable motion pictures debuting this season that had been impressed by Swift and Kelce’s relationship.
In the Hallmark Channel film, Hunter King performs a younger lady who’s making an attempt to assist her household win the Kansas City Chiefs’ “Fan of the Year” contest. He meets a staff government, performed by Tyler Hynes, who’s liable for evaluating the contestants. Following Hallmark’s script, the 2 quickly expertise heat and fuzzy emotions.
“Holiday Touchdown” is a partnership between Hallmark and the Kansas City Chiefs, so the movie additionally delves into the real-life phenomenon of multigenerational relationships bonded by a shared love of the Chiefs.
The movie was shot final summer time within the Kansas City space, together with at Arrowhead Stadium’s GEHA Field.
Hallmark, the cardboard firm, has lengthy known as Kansas City its dwelling.
“We are extraordinarily grateful to the complete Hallmark staff and the distinctive partnership that has been created round our two manufacturers and this movie,” Mark Donovan, president of the Kansas City Chiefs, mentioned in a September assertion saying the partnership.
Hallmark Media, which manages its tv portfolio, is headquartered in Studio City.
The movie is draped in purple and gold and options cameos from Chiefs gamers and coach Andy Reid. There can also be a small function for Donna Kelce, the footballer’s mom, who has turn out to be a star herself. On Friday, she was photographed with Swift because the pair headed inside Arrowhead Stadium to look at the NFL’s dominant staff beat the Las Vegas Raiders.
Jenna Bush Hager, Diedrich Bader, Megyn Price, Richard Riehle, Christine Ebersole and Richard Christy additionally seem within the movie.
Made-for-TV Christmas motion pictures have turn out to be one of the dependable and worthwhile merchandise within the business.
Several networks, together with Hallmark and Lifetime, churn out dozens of holiday-themed motion pictures every year to affix beloved evergreens like “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Home Alone” and “A Christmas Story” that air in syndication .
Hallmark’s different holiday-themed motion pictures embody “A ’90s Christmas,” “Sugarplummed,” “Following Yonder Star” and “Happy Howlidays.”
Last week, the Lifetime competitor debuted its vacation providing loosely primarily based on Swift and Kelce’s romance. “Christmas within the Spotlight” stars Jessica Lord as a pop star who falls in love with a soccer participant performed by Laith Wallschleger after they meet backstage at one in every of his concert events.
