Boom of Christmas romcoms
Make out in front of the Christmas tree
The market for romantic comedies set around Christmas is growing and growing. All peace, joy – gingerbread?
Especially in these times, people have to drink mulled wine together in a particularly spirited way – mayors are promoting the Christmas market in their city this year in a similar way. And streaming services and television channels are again showering those who want to spend Christmas with romantic comedies and festive romcoms.
The channel RTL Super, for example, shows “three Christmas films every evening for six weeks”, including of course the romantic comedies “Actually… Love” with Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley and many other stars, as well as “Love Needs No Holidays”. Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black.
A Christmas film is a Netflix hit just six weeks before the holiday
A good 40 days before Christmas Eve, a brand new Christmas film on Netflix was already the most successful film globally in the weekly charts. Hardly anyone cares anymore that the churches don’t want the pre-Christmas season to begin until after Dead Sunday.
Just as Christmas decorations hang in windows, shopping streets, shops and restaurants and Christmas trees have already been put up, just as gingerbread and speculoos have been available in the supermarket for weeks, people are already watching old and new Christmas films at the beginning and middle of November.
“Meet Me Next Christmas” with Christina Milian, based around a concert by an American a cappella group, was quickly viewed 18 million times worldwide within a few days after its release on November 6th, according to Netflix.
What’s it about? In order to reunite with the man of her dreams, with whom she had a brief but intense meeting at the airport a year earlier, Layla runs all over New York City to get a ticket to a sold-out Pentatonix Christmas concert.
But the plot almost doesn’t matter. It’s about feelings, longings, tingling and ringing. It seems to be a welcome change from world events to simply slip into Christmas romance. Escapism is booming.
Christmas as a celebration of love – in the sense of lovers
These cheesy love films with heart-pounding moments in a festive setting have become particularly popular in recent years. They show Christmas as a celebration of love, but no longer in the abstract sense of family and world peace, but rather in the way that it’s not just candles crackling, but also something that happens between two people.
It’s almost always the same plot, the gender roles are usually classic, there are hot looks in the cold snow, of course misunderstandings – and at the end there’s a smooch in front of the Christmas tree.
The streaming service Netflix has established itself as the master of this genre in recent years. Of course, competitors such as Disney+ and Prime Video or RTL+ and Apple TV+ also have many Christmas films on offer, but they are often more from the fantasy and classic fairy tale category, i.e. less love fairy tales.
New this year on Netflix is “Our Little Secret” with Lindsay Lohan (who was already successfully seen in the Christmas romance “Falling for Christmas” with Chord Overstreet in 2022). The new film is about two quarreling exes who have to spend Christmas together because their new partners are siblings.
In the new Netflix film “Hot Frosty,” however, a young widow brings a snowman to life – how much romance is there before he melts? And in “The Merry Gentlemen,” a provincial Broadway dancer puts on a Christmas revue with half-naked guys to save her parents’ venue.
The range of Christmas films is hardly manageable
In total, Netflix says it has more than 140 Christmas titles on offer, including really successful series from previous years such as “Christmas at Home” from Norway or the gay love story “Smiley” from Spain.
Anyone who decides to take note of what’s new in the Christmas film market and perhaps discover a new evergreen has a lot to do.
If you also want to watch the usual classics every year because they so reliably warm your heart and get you in the mood at the touch of a button (from “Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella” to the dating app fake profile romance “Love Hard” from 2020), He or she will probably have to start bingeing Christmas films in September.
dpa
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
