Discovery+ is sweetening its movie lineup with a brand new original Christmas film coming this winter, the streamer’s first-ever original scripted movie. Candy Coated Christmas is written especially around Food Network’s “The Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond who will star in the movie.
Candy Coated Christmas will allow Discovery+ to tap into the female-centric genre of holiday movies that has been successful for Hallmark Channel, Discovery’s OWN, and many more. The streamer plans to heavily cross-promote the film on its linear channels by leveraging its already strong Food Network audience with the appeal of Ree Drummond as a familiar face.
“It’s been a dream of ours to do this for a long time,” Kathleen Finch, Discovery’s chief lifestyle brands officer told Variety. “Not only do we have the Discovery Plus platform to put the movie on, what’s exciting is that we have giant cable networks and digital platforms that we can really use to promote the movie in a super-sized way.”
“So much of what we’re doing right now is looking at how do we take our niche genres — food, home, crime — and expand them in ways we might not be able to do on linear,” Finch said. “We can put them on Discovery Plus and market it in a different way. We are finding new ways to make our content available.”
Candy Coated Christmas follows a young woman (Molly McCook) who returns to her mother’s home town of Peppermint Hollow after her plans to launch a business are derailed by circumstance. Drummond plays the owner of a bakery who befriends the woman and introduces her around town.