Hark! The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce holiday TV movies are here!
Last fall, when the world’s most famous pop star and one of the NFL’s most talented players started very publicly dating amid a historic world concert tour and a run to the Super Bowl, it was so improbable, so entertaining, so cinematic that it felt like … well …
“At some point, I said, ‘It just feels so much like a movie,’ ” said Tia Maggini, senior vice president of programming for Lifetime and a Taylor Swift fan. “And then it was like, wait a minute – we could do that movie. That would be an amazing Christmas movie.”
Maggini’s job put her in the rare position to make that dream a reality, which is how “Christmas in the Spotlight” was born unto us. The film, about a Grammy-winning superstar who unexpectedly falls for a pro football player, premiered Nov. 23, a week before Hallmark Channel’s “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” premiering Saturday. That movie, centered on a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan who unexpectedly falls for a staff member of the team’s front office, technically does not mention Swift or Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce – but the inspiration of their romance hovers over the project like mistletoe, along with a cameo from Travis’ mom, Donna Kelce.
The two films are the natural result of an audience’s obsession with original TV Christmas movies – a genre that has exploded in recent years – as well as a fascination with Swift and Kelce that shows no signs of ending. Executives for both networks have become experts at mixing hype and holidays.
“There’s so much going on with the Chiefs right now, they’re clearly having a moment. And there’s a lot of love in the air because of that,” said Samantha DiPippo, senior vice president of programming at Hallmark Media. It also doesn’t hurt that as the movies are premiering, the team is at the top of the NFL standings at 10-1. Though the movie’s plot has nothing to do with Swift and Kelce, she knows people are thinking about them. “But as soon as (viewers) see this movie, they’re going to know this to us was truly a love letter to the Chiefs and to Kansas City and to Hallmark fans. And that was our intention making it.”
The creative team for Lifetime knows their film (one that Maggini calls “fan fiction”) will be scrutinized and hopes that Swifties – some of whom have expressed skepticism about the potential cringe factor – can see that the goal is to celebrate the couple.
“Is it their actual story? No, it is our imagining of what things could look like and just a really fun story that I think, at this point, really stands on its own,” Maggini said. “It is obviously very inspired by them, but we hope that people will connect to it regardless of whether they’ve heard of them, care about them, etcetera. It is just a really pleasurable Christmas movie.”
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Calling screenwriter Eirene Tran Donohue a Swiftie might be an understatement. She listens to Swift’s music when she goes on walks and while she works, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the megastar’s nearly two-decade discography and lore. So when she received a text from Maggini asking if she would want to write a Lifetime Christmas movie about a famous singer who falls in love with a famous football player, she thought it was a joke.
“I was like, ‘Ha ha.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait – are you serious?’ ” said Donohue, who has written multiple Christmas films for the network. Once she accepted it was not a prank, she quickly sent back an outline. Maggini’s response was: “Well, this is delightful. Go.”
In this tale, Bowyn Sykes (Jessica Lord) is a pop icon whose cultural impact is so significant that it is studied in college courses. She meets star wide receiver Drew “Gonzo” Gonville (Laith Wallschleger) backstage at one of her concerts when he accompanies his adorable young niece to a sold-out show. It’s an awkward first encounter, and later Drew summons his courage to post to social media and publicly invite Bowyn to a football game. After that, let’s just say that the sparks fly.
Donohue understands the importance of Easter eggs in the Swiftverse. This reporter lost count after more than two dozen references to everything from Swift’s lyrics (Bowyn describes herself as more of a bleacher girl than the cheerleading type) to Kelce’s old tweets (his musings about how squirrels love bread, for instance). While the core of the plot is the love story, Donohue wanted to explore the dynamics of trying to date in the public eye.
“The sports celebrity world is, I think, very different than the pop-music-actor-Hollywood type of fame,” Donohue said. “So seeing those two worlds combine – like, seeing her at his game and him going to her concerts – what I love about them is the way that they celebrate each other.”
During one scene, Bowyn’s manager (Jeannie Mai) makes a sly comment when she tells the singer that Drew is the opposite of “those pretentious actors and indie rockers that have broken your heart for the last 15 years.” That checks a box with Swift fans, who have scrutinized and empathized with her relationship journeys.
“In the past, it had always seemed like a lot of her relationships, they were always sort of trying to make her feel small or sort of brush off the fact that they were dating this ‘silly pop star’ because they’re, like, a serious actor or serious musician,” Donohue said.
She speculated that Kelce, perhaps because he’s in a traditionally masculine job, doesn’t seem threatened by his girlfriend’s stardom and is always hyping her up . The movie repeatedly emphasizes another lesson that the world has learned in the wake of the record-breaking Eras Tour, which is that Swift is an undeniable force who must be taken seriously.
Maggini, the programming executive, wants “Christmas in the Spotlight” to stand out among the sea of movies this time of year, stereotypically about the girl from the big city who falls in love with the cute guy from a small town around Christmas. Lifetime excels by thinking outside the box, she said, and this movie brings something extra to the idea of a made-for-TV holiday film – and not just because she encouraged Donohue to give “a little more sexy” to the script.
“I hope that Swifties know that this is a movie for them, and I hope that non-Swifties realize that this is a movie for them, too,” Maggini said. “At the end of the day, it’s just a really delicious Christmas treat at a time when we all need it.”
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Speaking of taking pop culture seriously, it might have once been difficult to imagine that the NFL would eagerly team up with Hallmark for a Christmas movie, and that the players would just as excitedly agree to participate. Now, 15 years into the channel’s “Countdown to Christmas” programming slate, it’s not even a question.
When the network, which is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, announced “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story” as a joint effort among Hallmark Media, the NFL, the Chiefs and Skydance Sports, a news release stated that more than 50% of Hallmark’s viewers also watched sports while 2023’s “Countdown to Christmas” was airing. DiPippo, the programming executive, said 25% of Hallmark Channel viewers are men and pointed to the statistic that nearly 50% of NFL viewers are women.
“We really felt like there was a lot of similarities there that we can tap into and really explore this bigger audience,” DiPippo said. “I have heard a lot, and I know the Chiefs and NFL have heard a lot since we’ve announced this partnership … ‘This is the first time this has happened?’ ”
The idea started last year after one of Hallmark’s screenwriters, Julie Sherman Wolfe, starred in a spot for ESPN that compared the 2023 football season to a Hallmark Christmas movie – the video included a glimpse of Swift cheering for Kelce at one of his games, and the voice-over called it an “unexpected romance.” Around the same time, the Chiefs released a trailer for a fake Hallmark-type movie titled “Falling for Football.”
Hallmark executives soon realized that they should just combine all of those elements for their own film. “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” written by Wolfe, focuses on an extended family that owns a merch store and is obsessed with the Chiefs. The daughter, Alana (Hunter King), enters them in a “fan of the year” contest and has a meet-cute with one of the Chiefs staffers, Derrick (Tyler Hynes), who is in charge of choosing the winner. The rest is Hallmark doing its Hallmark thing.
Several Chiefs players and coach Andy Reid make cameos; and so does feline social media star “Catrick Mahomes.” Donna Kelce, Travis’ mom, drops by to play a manager at a Kansas City barbecue restaurant. Producers filmed for three days at Arrowhead Stadium in the July heat.
The romance keeps it from feeling too much like a Chiefs infomercial, along with an overarching theme of how sports can keep an iron grip on one’s psyche – not only because of the game but because of how it connects family members. Another plot revolves around a magical Chiefs hat and gets into sports superstitions, which may take some viewers to unexpected places.
“Obviously at the end of the day, it’s going to be a lovely romance, and everything will be wrapped up in a beautiful bow. But we’ve got to keep them on their toes,” DiPippo said. After so many years, the network has become a lifestyle to its most loyal fans: “People want to live in that Hallmark Christmas bubble.”
The rabid interest in Swift and Kelce has provided a kind of bubble as well and could explain why they maintain such a grip on the culture. When the world is chaotic, would you rather think about what’s actually going on or be briefly distracted by beautiful people falling in love on your screens? TV executives already know the score.