It’s the heart of summer, but CBS has Christmas on the brain. The network is at work on two Christmas movies. Production began on Christmas Takes Flight in British Columbia earlier this month, and A Christmas Proposal is also in the works.
When they air in December, the projects will be the first original television movies to air on the network since 2012.
Motion Picture Corporation of America is producing both.
Made-for-TV movies were a staple on broadcast TV many years ago. Kelly Kahl, CBS Entertainment president, described the return as “one of those creative-meets-business-opportunity models that comes along every once in a while.” CBS found the right producer, and “it turned out to be a good financial deal for us. We loved the creative and we said, let’s get back in the movie business.”
Christmas Takes Flight centers on a battle of wills between pilot Jenny (Katie Lowes) and CEO Matt (Evan Williams), who purchases Jenny’s family-owned, regional airline.
“Matt’s cost-cutting initiatives threaten Christmas when he cancels the airline’s annual holiday charitable benefit for underserved children,” said CBS. “Determined to show Matt that the sweetest things in life are worth any price, Jenny rallies the community to help save the event and unexpectedly finds herself falling for the magnate in the process.”
Andrew Airlie, Kyra Leroux, Erik Gow and Keisha Haines are also in the cast. Brad Krevoy, Eric Jarboe, Amanda Phillips and Amy Krell are executive producers for Motion Picture Corporation of America. Nancy Bennett, Susanne Belzberg and Doran S. Chandler also executive produce.
A Christmas Proposal has Adam Rodriguez and Jessica Camacho in the cast. A down-on-her-luck chef who dreams of starting a line of food trucks agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a hotshot Seattle attorney as he visits his family for Christmas. Working together, they try to prove he’s the ideal candidate to take over the family firm, but the duo’s business arrangement is complicated when sparks begin to fly.
Holiday specials on CBS include Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.
