Candace Cameron Bure has starred in an impressive four of Hallmark’s 10 most-watched Christmas TV movie premieres. So she knows Christmas programming.
The Full House alum explained in a Variety story published Wednesday just why she thinks they’re such a hit with viewers.
“The biggest thing about Christmas movies in general is that people make fun of them — and yet people love them,” Bure said. “It’s because they’re predictable: You know that someone’s going to fall in love. You know it’s just going to be happy and warm. And people run to that, especially at the holidays.”
So Bure has no plans on quitting them, but she has switched teams. In April, she explained that she was leaving Hallmark for Great American Family, a new network led by Bill Abbott, a former boss at Hallmark’s parent company, who left after refusing to air a commercial featuring a same-sex couple. Variety reported, per sources, that Bure was offered nearly twice the $1 million per year contract that she had been given at Hallmark. At her new company, she’ll continue to star in movies and TV shows, but she’ll also work as a company executive in charge of creating an entire slate of Christmas fare. (She stars in Great American Family’s first such TV movie, A Christmas… Present, which premieres Nov. 22.)
“I think we know the core audience and what they love is exactly how Bill originally built the Hallmark Channel,” Bure said. “That was Christmas and those traditional holidays, so that’s what the focus is going to be. You’ve got to start somewhere. You can’t do everything at once.”
While promoting Hallmark’s The Christmas Contest in November 2021, Bure told Us Weekly that she once felt “an immense amount of pressure” as her holiday films did well in the ratings. But she’d given that up.
“You always want to hit that mark and exceed that mark,” she told the magazine. “And last year, I finally let it go because it’s not the reason why I make these movies. I make them because I love them. And I know that the viewers that watch them really love them, and they mean something to them. I always try to make it the best that I can, but I let the pressure go last year.”
Fans can expect to see Bure not only in more Christmas TV movies, but likely teaming up again with her former Full House co-star Lori Loughlin, whom she consistently supported during the fallout from the college admissions scandal. Abbott noted that he’s looking for the right script for her to lead.
