Hallmark will air a record 40 new Christmas movies this year
This holiday season, Hallmark will celebrate the big 4-0.
No, we’re not talking about Hallmark Channel’s birthday — it will finally be of voting age this August — but the number of new Christmas TV movies that you can expect in 2019, EW has learned exclusively.
40.
That whopper represents a new record for Hallmark Channel and its sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, which set a previous high in 2018 with 38 movies, accounting for about half of all new holiday TV movies across networks and streamers. That number broke the previous year’s record of 33. In short, you will be up to your earmuffs in unlikely reunions of long-lost high school sweethearts and holiday homecomings gone wrong then right.
Hallmark Channel will debut 24 of these new flicks, while HMM will premiere 16 others. Both networks have debuted 176 original Yuletide movies over the last 10 years, so this latest batch will push that figure well over the 200 mark. And because Christmas is the gift that keeps on giving, it’s possible that another movie or two could be stuffed into your stocking later this year. The first of these movies is scheduled to debut in July, with the launch of Hallmark’s halfway to Christmas campaign, titled Keepsake Christmas.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas, which kicks off Oct. 25. Sleighloads of familiar faces and fan favorites (minus Lori Loughlin) are expected to return to headline these movies. Earlier this year, EW revealed the first three movies of the season, which include: The Christmas Song, starring Kristin Chenoweth and Scott Wolf (see the photos above and below); Holiday for Heroes, which stars Melissa Claire Egan and Marc Blucas; and a Blake Shelton-executive produced film in the vein of 2018’s Time for Me to Come Home for Christmas.
Want to learn about one more movie right now? Introducing A Family Under the Christmas Tree (working title), which centers on a Los Angeles extreme-sports photographer (Merritt Patterson) who returns home for the holiday to take care of her grandmother, only to have a neighbor (Jon Cor) who grabs her attention as he needs assistance watching his young nephew.
To review all of the Christmas films from Hallmark’s 2018 slate, head over here.
