Hallmark’s Summer Nights Begins This Weekend by Whisking Us Off to Hawaii

©2021 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Zack Dougan

Looking for weekend plans? Hallmark has you covered. Their Summer Nights programming kicks off this Saturday, June 5 in a big way. They are taking us all to Hawaii and we don't even have to leave our couches! So, break out your best floral pajamas, maybe a lei or a flower crown, and a tropical cocktail and get ready for You Had Me at Aloha, airing Saturday night.

This Hawaiian getaway on film stars two faces that will be very familiar to Hearties, Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith, who not only star on When Calls the Heart, also made two other Hallmark movies together, The Perfect Bride and the sequel, The Perfect Bride: Wedding Bells. Hutton recently spoke to Southern Living about how the two actors contributed to the creation of this brand-new story for their fans. Over coffee, the two friends and costars hashed out a plan that would then be developed into a full feature-length movie.

Hutton recalled the conversation she had with Smith. "Let's come up with something fresh and new all on our own. And he said, 'oh okay. Well what kind of character do you want to play?' And after so many seasons of playing Rosemary on When Calls the Heart, which is so gregarious and larger than life and up for adventure, up for excitement. I said I want to play the opposite of that. I want to play a character that's risk adverse. Likes to have a plan. Likes to be in control. Likes to be behind the scenes. And he said 'okay, I'll play the opposite of that.'"

From that conversation, the same writer who worked with the pair on The Perfect Bride movies came in and filled out the story from their ideas. Hutton said they also learned from a director friend that he had just wrapped a film for Hallmark in Fiji. "We thought, what the heck? Hallmark's doing destination movies? That's what our movie is going to be. We're going to have it in a tropical destination," she said with a laugh.

As a result, we are getting a fantastic rom-com to transport us to the beaches of Hawaii straight from our own homes. The storyline, built from Hutton and Smith's ideas, centers around Paige (Hutton), a producer for a travel television show with a very type A personality, and Ben, the host the network hired to come liven the show up as he's known for taking his adventures to the extreme. Paige prefers everything planned, neat, and tidy where Ben likes to take life as it comes and always choose the most exciting route, which is often not the plan at all. The two personalities clash at first, but of course, it's a love story after all and opposites attract. Check out the exclusive clip below:

Since it was filmed entirely on location, the audience will also feel like they have taken an island vacation right along with the characters. "It is a travel show within the movie and we wanted that to feel really authentic and really celebrate how beautiful and exciting Hawaii is. And people come away from the movie and want to book that ticket and go there," Hutton said.

And this is a movie that almost didn't make it to our screens. The coffee meeting that turned into the movie we are all about to watch happened in 2018. Because of the pandemic, this movie was set to film in April of 2020, and of course the whole world stopped and with that the production was put on hold, only able to resume in March of 2021. So Hutton hopes that while being entertained by their true labor of love, "I think all of us are hoping that people tuning in to watch this movie it will remind people of the joy and excitement and adventure that goes along with traveling and inspire people because that is close now. That is on the horizon."