I met the author... a guy who wrote the script for one of the pictured movies. He was doing stand-up comedy on a cruise ship. He said yes, they are all terrible, but there's a certain audience for them and they're quite profitable.
He said I want you to think of me when you're forced to watch one of these. I want you to know who is responsible, and that I'm very sorry.
They probably cost next to nothing to produce, so even a small audience will make them profitable.
I wonder, if you could just cycle through the same 5 movies without anyone noticing.
They have two movies that are the same exact movie but told through two different main characters point of view. Same scenes and everything.
It's actually an interesting idea on paper. And Hallmark is probably the perfect way to do something like that.
Hallmark red and hallmark blue. There are certain characters you can only get through trading with someone who watched the other film
It’s actually an interesting idea on paper.
I'm hearing an implied "but not on screen..."
They are definitely lower budget than 'normal' movies. But even as a low budget it still requires all the same production staff, camera, sound, editor, crew park staff, food services, wranglers, casting etc. The cheap part is unknown actors and not a lot of travel. Source: my wife has done background work on many movies and TV shows. As background they get paid to sit until call time. so scene maybe half hour, but all the background people waiting get a full hourly pay and all the food you want while waiting. You will notice on hallmark they zoom in tight so background is barely visible, this helps not having a large set of background people. in one movie at the mall they had my wife shopping and walking back and forth. it works for the scene but if you watched it closely you would notice the same lady in every scene carrying different boxes or bags.
Just once I want a man in a red sweater and a woman in a green dress [sobs].
Here’s a script idea:
Suzy Citygirl has to plan the perfect Christmas pageant or Bernard Bigbiz will fire her from her job at the Joyless Inc. Little does she know when she gets sent to Tinytown, Vermont on business she'll meet Matty McSmall town. He owns the struggling local tinsel factory and needs to sell enough tinsel by Christmas or else his grandma won't be allowed to have the surgery she needs to remove the tumor from her holiday spirt gland. Matty is also single dad that was widowed by a freak tinsel lathing accident and the little girl loves Sally Citygirl from the beginning and secretly helps her dad see past his pain.
With minutes to spare in the Christmas pageant/tumor deadline Suzy convinces Mr. Bigbiz to buy enough tinsel to save the Christmas pageant AND remove grandma's tumor! But after throwing the perfect pageant she realizes Mr. Bigbiz is a terrible boss, and moves to Tinytown permanently. She falls in love with Matty, and gets a job at his tinsel factory. With her big business skills the struggling tinsel factory grows three sizes that day.
Mr. Bigbiz is ruined. He realizes the error of his ways and comes to Vermont to apologize. Now he too works at the tinsel factory, and loves life now. But don’t forget, throughout the movie the cast interacts with lovable bearded old man who may or may not be Santa, because wtf, why not?
I love how Suzy's name changed at random.
I mean it's Hallmark, is anything really of consequence?
You missed the best series of nonsense Christmas movies:
Yes these are legit hallmark movies.
So we're still waiting for "Us" and "It" before we crack into the non-binary-centric pronouns, which we obviously won't.
And it's always some woman that lives in the same town her whole life. The man either just moved back or is new to the small town
Or, small town girl moved to the big city, returns to small town and sees that man iN a NeW LigHt
Or man womans woman at man then man man the woman
I can watch that for free on the internet.
Ive got hundreds of these damn movies on my Plex server specifically because my wife LOVES this crap.
I'm convinced we have a Family-Guy-Manatee-Ball-Pit situation going on here. There's less balls to choose from, but damn if I haven't seen "save family business with a last minute impromptu charity event spurred on by the handsome dude from her past who posseses some talent" 100 fucking times.
They aren't usually direct plot copies, they just have identical pieces that get moved around so they can factory farm these bitches out.
You forgot the person the protagonist is currently involved with who is a puppy-kicking narcissist. Source: my wife loves these movies too.
He also forgot the silly, but loveable sidekick best friend of the romantic interest who is irrelevant for the whole movie, but helps to save the day in the end (and sometimes gets it on with the very serious sidekick best friend of the main character).
Source: my wife loves these movies too.
Fun game: see how much of the set is used in other movies. Most of the Hallmark movies are made on the same set in Atlanta so some will share little things like the same staircase or same exterior of a house. Hallmark reuses more than just the plots!
What's a manatee ball pit situation?
There's an episode of South Park where they go to the writing offices of Family Guy for whatever reason, and instead of actual writers, they have an aquarium tank full of manatees and plastic balls with words on them.
The manatees would bring the balls to the top of the tank, few at a time, and the staff would use the words on the balls as prompts for their new jokes/episodes.
What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers and 1 plot?
!633 hallmark movies!<
They look a lot like the identikit romance books my mum would read. Even she didn't know which one's she'd read before. Be like three quarters of the way in and then go "oh, I've read this".
Pretty sure ChatGPT could create those things by now, such is the limitless array of imagination on offer within.
They don't need anything nearly as complicated as GPT LLMs . They already generate these scripts with a MS Word macro. It's been like that for years.
Once in a while the source dictionary is updated. They sell the scripts in lots of like 20 and charge for any customized work.
I'm certain those books work the same way.
If you can think of a way that reduces work and increases profits. They are already doing it.
Not trying to be racist but it's almost always a man and a woman who are both White - and probably a Black side character if they are feeling generous.
They have ones with black protagonists, the white ones just have a few token black people, often for comic relief. This is TV for Karens essentially.
The channel viewership is 99.999% overweight to obese older white women. This is functionally their porn.
If they do have an interracial couple it's always a black man with a white woman. Never the other way around.
Hollywood's (meaning movie and TV producers in general) default is white and straight.
The hetero norm is changing slowly, but the white norm is still very much a thing. Typically for a movie to feature a predominantly POC cast, it's directed by a POC and listed as a POC movie, rather than just... well, a movie.
I love these movies, I think part of it is that holiday movies are some of the only light-hearted movies around that aren't for kids. I don't care that they suck in real terms or are all the same (something about xmas brings enhances my tolerance for terrible music and movies), I do wish they Hallmark knew about POC and LGBTQIA.
My husband absolutely adored these because they were wholesome with no gratuitous sex or violence. He was a conservative Christian and these were some of the few shows he could really enjoy unreservedly. (I doubt he would have been pleased to see a gay story, though. He's not around to ask, unfortunately.)
I find them predictable and banal. But to each his own. He would watch a Hallmark movie in one room and I'd be in the other room watching Criminal Minds or something LOL
I live in a small town in Vermont, my girlfriend grew up here but moved away to New York City and has recently returned. She hates Christmas and I love it. Ive been trying to get her into the Christmas spirit. We were picking a Christmas tree when i realized we're literally following the plot of these stupid movies and i now i keep mentioning how i need her big city business skills to help save my Christmas themed bakery
That's their trademark, as soon as you see it you know it's a Hallmark romantic, cheesy, family movie.
My grandmother loves these movies. Some channel started playing them since July and she's basically watched and rewatched all of them by now.
Fast and furious XV: The return of Naruto
HolidayPorn
When you have that almost perfect Stable Diffusion prompt and you're trying to figure out what you have to change to get it that last little bit.
This is what bland, AI generated crap looks like, folks. But you can still make your own entertainment library. Buy an external hard drive and start a collection of your favorite movies/series (while you still can).
Damn, if in one movie he'd wear red and she green that would be a revolution I guess.
I assume this was the same for the Harlequin Romance Novels too? I knew a few women over the years that had a bunch of these books. They seemed to digest them like monthly magazines.
In some ways it's sort of a business dream to be able to keep repacking the same nuts and bolts to make something slightly different for consumers who will keep paying. It's pretty efficient.
Still I've not read a Harlequin Romance nor have I seen a Hallmark movie. This doesn't mean I've not seen all of the Star Wars movies or a good majority of the Marvel ones.
Harlequin novels are bodice rippers and basically porn without pictures. Literate ladies are thirsty but want something top shelf to sip on.
"In some ways it's sort of a business dream to be able to keep repacking the same nuts and bolts to make something slightly different for consumers who will keep paying. It's pretty efficient."
Madden. FIFA. Call of Duty.
