1) Must have at least one person making way too much money from what clearly should be a hobby. A guy making a living on toys, a woman that takes a barely viable seasonable industry and somehow turns it super-profitable by the end of the show.

2) Must have either a gay best friend or the actor playing the male lead is obviously gay.

3) Have someone get REALLY mad and break up for the relationship over either a miscommunication or a relatively minor lie (Oh no, I can not marry you because you did not tell me you are a Prince)

4) One of the two sides must have an impossibly cute child AND that child should never ever misbehave in any way shape or form.

5) Nobody will talk about how incredibly attractive both leads are - often while dismissing slightly less attractive people in a generally insulting manner while pretending that those less attractive people have horrible personalities.

I think generating Hallmark Christmas slop is something AI will soon be able to do. Imagine a new coal-powered Christmas movie every few seconds as the atmosphere degenerates.

I've been watching quite a few of these kinds of movies because there's no need to pay a lot of attention while doing something else, and there's the feel-good vibe at the end.

They're so full of tropes that the only substitution in the default script are the characters, their occupation, and the name of the small town, but it's enough to entertain.

Next one, a single female screenwriter with writer's block on a deadline that makes or breaks everything, meets a young girl who's a fan and her father who has lo

I really didn't mind Hallmark movies. However, then they tried to make some Chanuka movies, and the results were borderline antisemitic, with them essentially focusing on how Chanuka was at best a weird other holiday and the true thing that mattered was Christmas. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/02/hallmarks-making-some-hanukkah-movies-only-problem-theyre-anti-semitic/ [washingtonpost.com] [2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hallmarks-hanukkah-movies-are-really-christmas-movies-about-how-hanukkah-is-weird/2019/12/23/6246dfcc-21c0-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html [washingtonpost.com]. Making films for your own cultural group is one thing, but pretending you are going to make films for other cultural groups and then making it actually functionally bash that other group? Something is then very wrong with you or your audience at that point. Of course, it shouldn't be too surprising that some on the right have complained that Hallmark is too "woke" because they (gasp!) have had gay secondary characters. They've even made their own Hallmark rival channel over essentially that which is even more explicitly Christian [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Family [wikipedia.org].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/02/hallmarks-making-some-hanukkah-movies-only-problem-theyre-anti-semitic/

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hallmarks-hanukkah-movies-are-really-christmas-movies-about-how-hanukkah-is-weird/2019/12/23/6246dfcc-21c0-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Family

A lot of Hallmark films are, for some reason, filmed in small towns around my hometown of Ottawa in Canada.

The CIA has a new Interrogation weapon at their disposal. Play all 300 films back to back to back

Some talented film-maker needs to take these rules and create a movie that is required to break every single one of them. Dunno what that would look like, but it might be fun.

Identify a pattern that the target audience likes.

Create an artless, near-perfect copy while being the tiniest bit different so it feels fresh and new.

Rinse, repeat

But at least it gives me a chance to point out that

Die Hard IS a Christmas movie!!

> Christmas movies must include snow or its remnants and feature characters engaged in seasonal activities like baking cookies, ice skating, and drinking hot chocolate.

As a kid this confused me, why was it cold and snowing at Christmas in all the movies and TV shows when it is the middle of summer? Where I grew up Christmas was playing cricket on the beach and barbecues. So today it is Christmas again and the sun is shining, it going to be a hot day. Time to get stuff ready for the guests arriving today.

The large majority of the movies I've seen were clearly Canadian. My bigoted family got mad for this being pointed out to them. More to the point when they started looking at the casts Wikipedia pages they were almost all Canadian.

Hit them right in the bigotry.

Every shot must have red and green in the frame. I don't know if this is true, but it sure seems like it.

Someone did a comedy routine with the formula and it seemed pretty accurate...not that I would know.

The Hallmark "Bible" described in TFS sounds like it could be used as detailed prompts for an AI/ LLM to write scripts ...

They even have the structure diagramed nicely, based on an analysis of several years of Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies (400+ movies) .

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]

1. At Christmas time

2. a female { lawyer , CEO, real estate developer , reporter }

3. travels to a small town

4. and meets { high school sweetheart, local handyman, single dad, army vet }.

5. Meanwhile, a

a. { family cafe , Alaskan inn, dairy farm } needs saving OR

b. { toy drive , ball, fundraiser } needs to be organized OR

c. mystery { who owned the bracelet , who is secrete santa } needs saving

6. In the end, { she decides to move to the town, he decides to join her in the city }

7. and they kiss.

The end. It's a fun read.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/23/upshot/hallmark-lifetime-christmas.html