James Brolin Comes Home for Christmas — With a Gift From Barbra Streisand
Hallmark Channel is known for its holiday movies, and now Hallmark Movies & Mysteries will be too. Yahoo TV has your first look at I’ll Be Home for Christmas, an original film starring, produced, and directed by James Brolin, premiering Nov. 27.
He plays a father who intends on just passing through in his motor home when his daughter (Mena Suvari) convinces him to stick around and spend Christmas with her and his granddaughter (Brolin’s Life in Pieces co-star Giselle Eisenberg, for whom he had the role written).
Who’s that singing the title song in the promo? None other than Barbra Streisand, Brolin’s wife. It’s the first time she’s ever allowed her music used in a TV movie.
Brolin, along with his manager, executive producer Scott Hart, developed the film with writer Robin Bernheim. “It was called A Pair of Jacks originally, because Jim’s character is Jack and Mena Suvari’s character is Jackie,” Hart says. “That was gonna be the title, and it was a Christmas movie, and I said to Jim, ‘How fun would it be to get some of Barbra’s music in it?’ And he said, ‘Well, let’s see what we can do.’ He goes, ‘You know what? We can get “Jingle Bells.”’ And I thought, ‘That’s awesome.’ So we had her fast version of ‘Jingle Bells.’”
As the script developed, Hart had another idea. “I said to him, ‘You know, he’s coming home for Christmas. How amazing would it be if we could get her version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” [too]?’ So he mentioned the storyline to Barbra, and she said, ‘I’m giving it to you for Christmas.’ That was her Christmas gift to him — her version of ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ without any of her fees attached to it,” Hart says. “So we changed the name of the movie.”
I’ll Be Home for Christmas premieres Nov. 27 at 9 p.m. ET on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
