Hallmark, a beloved franchise by elders and heart sobs alike around the world. Hallmark started when J.C Hall moved to Kansas City MO and started a postcard business after his successful in Nebraska with his brothers. Hallmark would release in 1951 its first production featured on Hallmark Television Playhouse-now named the Hallmark Hall of fame-on NBC and was called “Amahl and the Night Visitors” which appeared as an opera on December 24th. In 2001 Hallmark would officially have its own channel but wouldn’t start its Christmas line until 2009 known as the Christmas countdown. The Christmas countdown would continue until present day and the Hallmark channel still mass produces these movies, and now even TV shows, every year around Christmas time using the same format almost every time. But what is the Hallmark movie format?
The Hallmark format is a pretty simple one on the outside but it’s actually even simpler than it seems. Hallmark has mastered this entertainment formula to mass produce movies and shows, whether good or bad, to get them to hit shelves as quickly as possible. The Hallmark formula is a basic layout that all their movies and original shows follow. Sometimes these movies or shows would have different variations to a segment of the formula but remotely stayed the same. Hallmark would try and deviate from their format by changing the setting that led the main male and female leads meeting, like maybe why the female lead was in the area, where the male lead worked, or how they know each other/their past.
But what is the actual Hallmark format and why doesn’t it work? The Hallmark format follows this basic outline. The movie and often their shows start with always with a city girl that maybe isn’t happy with where her life is headed at the moment, now this is where some of the newer Hallmark films deviate from the plot, usually she would go back to her old small town-often leaving behind a partner in the city-but in the newer renditions the female lead stays in the city after quitting a job or relationship and starts a new career. After that segment the female lead meets or really reunites with the male lead whose always 1 of three things. Hes either an old friend from her small town, an old ex-boyfriend she left behind for the big city, or her rival which she has an enemies to lover’s trope with. Then the climax of the story happens which can be many different things but in its most basic format is the male and female lead having to come together to save something like for example from films the female leads grandmother bakery, the male leads store, and even once or twice Christmas its self. After all that we get to the end segment if the format which has the male and female lead getting together, the female leads boyfriend-if she has one-being ok with basically being cheated on, and the female leading being happy with her life and deciding to stay with the male lead wherever he might be.
The Hallmark movie format is honestly a toxic one in its relationships and its production. Hallmark started as a dream and was very successful for a very long time, but the modern world and the fact films are now so easy to make a new release is 1 out of 3 times just a cash grab those dreams are broken. Hallmark has over 70 years in the entertainment industry and with doing almost the same exact thing for every movie for at least the last 20 years it gets old and the viewers see that. People all around the world call Hallmark out on this but they don’t change. That’s why Hallmark doesn’t work because you always know what you’re going to get and there is no point in watching the same movie twice with just different characters or setting.
