For my final post for November, I decided to write a Word on the Street story. This is because of two reasons: the first being that I’ve only written one Word on the Street post this month and the second is some exciting Hallmark related movie news that I felt had to be shared. Both of the movie news stories in this post are about Hallmark movies that are likely to premiere sometime next year. At this point and time, significant details about these films, such as the synopsis and release dates, are unknown. As always, I will not only report on these stories, but also give my honest opinion about them. Without further delay, let’s start talking about this batch of movie news!
Last week, Rukiya Bernard, one of the stars of the Hallmark Channel movie, One Winter Weekend, shared a photo on her Instagram feed featuring her and her co-stars from One Winter Weekend. Within the photo’s caption, the hashtag #onewinterweekend was found with a “pt2” next to it. Initially, I have mixed feelings about One Winter Weekend receiving a sequel. From a business perspective, this decision makes sense. Out of all four of this year’s “Winterfest” movies from Hallmark Channel, One Winter Weekend earned the highest number of viewership. Personally, I was not a fan of this movie, so I’m not thrilled with the idea of a sequel being given to a movie that, to me, was not as good as other 2018 released Hallmark films. However, the best part of One Winter Weekend, in my opinion, was Rukiya Bernard and Dewshane Williams’ acting performance, on-screen chemistry, and their characters. Even though my expectations for this new movie are very low, what would increase my interest in the film is if, this time, Rukiya and Dewshane were the lead actress and actor.
Yesterday, on Forbes’ website, an article was published about Hallmark Christmas movies. Within this article, it was revealed that Hanukkah will be incorporated into two upcoming Hallmark movies! Since not a lot is known about these two films, it is, right now, difficult to determine how much significance Hanukkah will have within each film’s respective narrative. However, I do think this decision is quite interesting. Out of all of Hallmark’s movies, only three that I can think of that discuss the Jewish faith are Hitched for the Holidays, Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Loving Leah, and Hallmark Hall of Fame’s The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler. In recent years, Hallmark has incorporated elements into their films that either hasn’t appeared in Hallmark movies for awhile (for example, Love on Ice being, at the time, only the second figure skating themed movie after Ice Dreams) or has never appeared in a Hallmark movie before (an example is the incorporation of quilting in Hallmark Hall of Fame’s Christmas Everlasting). Since Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries are growing networks, it makes sense for the company to consider creating, at least, a few movies that discuss a holiday besides Christmas. With both networks’ Christmas line-ups acquiring more viewers every year, expanding the audience to recognize Jewish fans sounds like a good idea.
What do you think of these pieces of movie news? Do you think any of these films has potential? Share your thoughts in the comment section!
Have fun at the movies!
Sally Silverscreen
If you want to check the sources that I referenced in this post, you can visit Rukiya’s official Instagram feed (at rukiya.bernard), and these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hallmark_Channel_Original_Movies#cite_note-hx-317
18 Cinema Lane 
I love Rukiya Bernard and Dewshane Williams as well. I would like to see a third sequel, “One Winter Wedding” with both couples being given equal billing.
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Thanks for visiting my blog, Kathi! There actually is a third movie called “One Winter Wedding” in the works! However, very little information has been revealed about the project.
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