Over the past few years, Netflix has been chipping away at Hallmark Channel’s holiday season share.
Screenwriter Russell Hainline is no stranger to Christmas movies, having written several projects for Hallmark, including Santa Claus Summit and happy measures. This week, he debuted his first feature on Netflix, titled hot frost.
Movie Hallmark actor Lacey Chabert stars as Kathy, a widow beloved by locals who transforms an eight-pack snowman sculpture into a new one by wrapping it in a magical scarf. Became a real, very naked man named Jack. The naive and unusually kind-hearted Jack (Dustin Milligan) comes under the radar of local women and helps plan the high school’s winter dress while being pursued by the police for an initial act of public indecency. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews and is currently ranked No. 1 among U.S. streaming movies on Netflix
early release hot frost, hollywood reporter Discussed with Hainline hot frostthe joke didn’t make the final cut and kept the cynicism out of the holiday: “Satire is a safety net. These movies should exist without the safety net.”
How this idea was realized hot frost Coming?
Sometimes, as a writer, you like to come up with solutions that will make your friends laugh and make you laugh, but you never think they will actually come to fruition. One of the questions that always makes people laugh is: What if Frosty the Snowman came to life, and instead of being a snowman, he was a super handsome guy? Almost everyone I told them responded: Yes, that should be a movie. So, I thought about pitching it, but I was worried that if I pitched it, along the way, it would be watered down into something more tame. I wanted it to be fun because my snowman wouldn’t instantly transform into some fantasy being, but would have the innocence and innocence of someone born yesterday. I wanted it to be a little sexier, just a little bit risqué. He came into the world naked, like an old guy. So, I wrote a spec [script]. I totally thought I was just doing it for myself, making something that you know I love but no one else really wants to do. I wrote this during the pandemic, when my anxiety was very high, and writing something like this gave me some joy. Here we are a few years later. Yeah, obviously, here we are a few years later.
Are you in town pitching the script?
i was chosen [production company] Muse, she really embraced it and loved it for what it was. I know some people read this article, saw the title and immediately said, “Not interested.”
Those people are wrong.
To me, that’s crazy, right? The title is part of what makes it interesting, and luckily we have an advocate at Netflix who really loves the script and is personally involved in the cause. Saw this headline at a time when people are more risk averse hot frost Sometimes, what’s on the home page can be a roadblock, but luckily for certain people we work with at Netflix, it’s not a roadblock.
Were you concerned that the title would change during production?
I’m very nervous every day. I think having people who really love the title helps a lot. I can’t believe I’m talking about the title hot frost 2024.
The title and premise are already funny, but is there something hilarious that’s not in the movie that’s hard to spot?
This is crazy, but this movie has a joke two popes. when craig [Robinson] and joe [Truglio] There were all the pictures on the board – the classic suspects board – and he had a picture of Anthony Hopkins on there silence of the lambs. Joe Truglio would say, “Oh, he’s two popes. Did you see it? He is one of two popes! Craig would say, “Of course, he’s one of the two popes! You can’t make a movie about two popes and cast Anthony Hopkins and not have him play one of the two popes.” ! I hope so, because this is a Netflix movie two popes On Netflix we can get this two popes Interject.
The movie is funny, but your main character, Kathy, is a widow dealing with the grief of losing her husband. And Jack is constantly faced with his own mortality and the transience of life, because, yes, he is a snowman. These are very intense subjects.
I think it’s easy to imagine a one-joke version of this movie that doesn’t sincerely approach the premise or make the audience care. I think it’s also easy to imagine a romance novel version with less of the comedy inherent in the premise. Overall, I very much believe in the sincerity of the movie. I think Christmas movies are sincere in their tone and are often accused of being tacky – and sometimes audiences are certainly right in that assessment – but I find myself becoming less and less interested in movies that constantly wink at the camera, or that constantly wink at the camera. A character who delivers sarcastic, self-reflective quips. There’s a certain amount of sincerity poured into these movies that maybe people might wave off as corny, but satire is a safety net. These movies should exist without a safety net. They make no secret of who they are. That’s why so many people like them.
hot frost This isn’t your first holiday movie. You’ve written several articles for Hallmark. How did you get started making holiday movies?
I grew up watching genre movies – aliens, monsters, disaster movies, creature features, basically anything I could watch on cable with my brother. So when I moved to Los Angeles, that’s what I planned to do. You know, thrillers, sci-fi, horror, action. I wrote some specs and attended some meetings. I made a thriller for Lifetime, but I didn’t really get the traction I wanted. During my presidency, as the pandemic began, my anxiety escalated and, frankly, I got tired of sitting around all day thinking about creative ways to kill people. I think a friend must have mentioned to me that they knew someone who did these [holiday movies] I thought, “Of course, I’ll give it a try.” I didn’t know anything about Christmas movies. I knew nothing about this world, and in early 2020 I wrote a Christmas movie about a boy and a reindeer that was inspired by a pit bull I rescued. I had a lot of fun writing this book and it felt really good to write – it’s about good people who do their best and everything goes well. I told a friend of mine from college who is an amazing actress, [about the script] Didn’t realize she was friends with Jack Grossbart, a producer who made a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies. She put me in touch with Jack, who took me under his wing and helped me get my first movie made at Hallmark.
What did you learn while working in space?
I admire how they operate as a studio. At a time when there was a lot of discussion about whether or not movie stars existed, Hallmark, in a very old school way, created one of its own. You’ve known for a long time that when you watch a Warner Bros. movie, you’re going to see Jimmy Cagney, Bette Davis, or Lauren Bacall. Hallmark now has its own face. They make a lot of movies, just like studios did in the old days, so a lot of actors get the shots and the audience connects with these people, these characters, and these worlds. At a time when studios are making fewer and fewer movies, bigger budget movies and star power seems less important than things like IP and CGI, here’s a studio making tons of movies every year. They are low budget and character driven. I think there are lessons to be learned there.
A comparison I like to make is StarCraft. I feel like most people may not know who the stars are or may not have heard of all these characters, but some people will line up for hours at conventions and pay a lot of money to see these people. Some people run fan pages. Hallmark Christmas Cruises are underway. It’s incredibly humbling. Just because it’s not something everyone universally understands, doesn’t mean there aren’t so many devoted fans to whom these movies mean the absolute world.
hot frost Currently streaming on Netflix.
