Red carpet ready: Kansas City awaits premiere of Hallmark’s Christmas Chiefs movie
The Kansas City Chiefs will make their Hollywood debut Saturday night and the city is ready to celebrate the moment with the Super Bowl champs — red carpet and all.
Since July, when actors and film crews set up camp in Kansas City, Chiefs Kingdom has buzzed with anticipation about its starring role in, of all things, a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. And the premiere is finally at hand.
“Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” airs at 7 p.m. Saturday on the Hallmark Channel.
But Kansas City begins celebrating at 6:30 p.m. Friday night.
The movie’s lead actors — Hunter King and Tyler Hynes — will be special guests of Mayor Quinton Lucas at the annual lighting of the Mayor’s Christmas Tree on Crown Center Square. A new light show and fireworks will follow the Friday night festivities.
Then, at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Hallmark will roll out a red carpet on Grand Boulevard in front of Crown Center Square.
Hallmark movie buffs and Chiefs fans are invited to attend the free event in their favorite Chiefs gear or Christmas sweaters. They can watch the movie’s cast and guests from the Chiefs — including Chiefs cheerleaders and mascot KC Wolf — walk down the carpet. Names of other special guests are under wraps.
Visitors also will find Hallmark’s new Christmas Experience set up on the square.
(A special note about traffic in the area: Grand Boulevard will be closed from 25th Street to Pershing Road from 4 p.m. Friday to 11:59 p.m. Saturday.)
The movie was filmed in July in various locations around Kansas City, including on the historic Independence Square and at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, both of which were decorated to look like Christmas.
When have you ever seen Arrowhead’s jumbotron read “Happy Holidays” and KC Wolf walking around in a Santa costume in the summer?
Kansas Citians will recognize places and faces. Chiefs coach Andy Reid, guard Trey Smith, running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, defensive end George Karlaftis and wide receiver Mecole Hardman all have cameos in the movie. Chiefs cheerleaders, too.
Donna Kelce, the mother of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, even has a tiny speaking role as the manager of a barbecue joint.
Travis and his brother, Jason Kelce, noted with much amusement on their “New Heights” podcast last week that, although their mom can cook many things, barbecue isn’t one of them. That was more their dad’s wheelhouse.
“I have not seen a lot of Hallmark movies,” Jason admitted, adding that he’s “excited to watch this one.”
All of this came about because of a move the Chiefs made shortly after the New Year that caught Hallmark’s attention.
Ahead of the playoffs in January, the Chiefs teamed up with Funny or Die director Parker Seaman and “SNL” Digital Shorts editor Ryan Spears to create a trailer for a fictional movie called “Falling for Football.”
It looked just like a Hallmark Christmas movie promo, featuring a winter theme and actual Hallmark actors (Janel Parrish and Hynes, star of one of the channel’s most popular films, “Three Wise Men and a Baby”).
That fun social-media post led to the movie premiering Saturday, according to Lara Krug, chief marketing officer for the Chiefs.
“Last playoff season, we had this idea of celebrating the best holiday of the year for Chiefs fans: It’s the playoff season,” Krug said last week on “CBS Mornings.”
“So we created a brand campaign, and what better way to celebrate holidays than creating a little bit of a movie trailer and an ode to Hallmark films that are so notorious for that?
“And we put together a two-minute trailer called ‘Falling for Football.’ We worked with Hallmark actors and actresses. We launched it on our social channels, and it kind of rolled very quickly from there.”
The mock trailer, made without Hallmark’s knowledge, felt a little like “Ted Lasso,” said Chiefs team president Mark Donovan.
Jason Sudeikis’ award-winning Apple TV show began as a commercial for NBC Sports.
“A month later, we got a call from Hallmark saying, ‘Yeah, we should talk,’” Donovan told CBS. “And Nov. 30, we got a movie coming out, and we’re really excited.
“It’ll be on Hallmark and really capture the excitement of the season, capture the playoff season and everything we’ve done as a franchise.”
The movie revolves around the romance of a Chiefs employee who is a fan liaison. That’s a real job in the Chiefs organization and served as a jumping-off point for the script.
“We actually have a VP of fan engagement, Jane Martin, who works on our team, who works with all of our fans in Chiefs Kingdom, and works on our fan of the year program, which is a real program within the NFL,” Krug said.
“So it was a little bit of a mirror, I think, to real life but with the Hollywood magic that Hallmark brings.”
In the movie, King plays Alana Higman, who is certain that her family’s lifelong history as Chiefs superfans makes them a shoo-in to win the team’s “Fan of the Year” contest.
Hynes plays Derrick, the team’s director of fan engagement, who must evaluate how Alana’s family stacks up against other finalists. One thing leads to another and, as happens in all Hallmark Christmas movies, cute guy falls for cute gal.
The dramatic plot twist: When a lucky vintage Chiefs hat belonging to Alana’s grandfather, played by Ed Begley Jr., goes missing, her faith in fate, destiny, even a possible future with Derrick, is shaken.
Arrowhead in July
Not only will Kansas Citians recognize locations in the movie, they’ll recognize themselves.
About 1,000 people suited up in Chiefs stocking caps, coats and other winter gear for scenes shot at Arrowhead over three days in steamy July.
It was yeoman’s work, pretending to be cold while sitting in the blistering stadium. With fans and portable air conditioners running, they had ice packs shoved down their backs and wrapped around their necks while guzzling thousands of bottles of water.
They contended with rain delays, too, when: On the day of a big tailgating scene, a KC thunderstorm, replete with lightning, rolled through.
But this project was momentous for the Chiefs and Hallmark, bringing together two of Kansas City’s most iconic brands and their ardent fans. It’s poised to be the biggest movie Hallmark has ever made, Hallmark executives said at the time.
“We have a big scope here, with the number of extras we’re shooting with, the complexity of the shoot,” Lisa Hamilton Daly, executive vice president of programming for Hallmark Media, told reporters during filming at Arrowhead.
“I watched our team yesterday manage a crazy day. Really a day like I’ve never seen us do before with so many VIPs, extras and tons of fans and everything. It was a huge shoot for us.
“Yes, it was a lot of money, more money than we often spend and it was just a complex shoot.”
While it’s a Hallmark Christmas movie, “Holiday Touchdown” and its connection with the Chiefs is sure to be a success, Donovan said last week on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“If you talk to the Hallmark folks today,” Donovan said, “it’s put them in a different place in terms of advertisers looking at this product on their station versus the typical Hallmark holiday movie.”
Hynes a sports fan now
The filming also put ardent Hallmark movie fans up close and personal with Hynes, an uber-popular “Hallmark hunk” who admitted he was never a big sports fan until seeing what that fervor looks like in Kansas City.
Now he’s a bonafide member of Chiefs Kingdom. He and King even returned to Kansas City for the Chiefs’ season opener in September.
The first time he visited Arrowhead to film the playoff parody, the stadium was empty and quiet. Beautiful, he called it.
It was vastly different from shooting the Christmas movie surrounded by hundreds of extras and crew members and folks from both Hallmark and the Chiefs.
Hynes shook innumerable hands and cheerfully posed for selfies with fans, many of whom staked out the Independence Square, hoping to catch a glimpse of the movie magic unfolding there. He said he drove around town in a rental car, as he does for every movie shoot, to get to know Kansas City.
“It never occurred to me that anyone would want a photo with me,” Hynes told reporters during a break in filming at Arrowhead. And yes, he sounded sincere about that.
He said making this movie felt different from any other project.
“I think it’s the people. I think being amongst the people who watch it,” he said. “Also, the staff on the Chiefs’ side, they watch a lot of Hallmark movies, it seems. And that type of energy really changes the dynamic on set. ...
“Every one of these movies is a different experience because of the elements involved, and obviously the Chiefs are such a huge element and the city is such a huge element. This has had the biggest influence for me, this sort of creative process of making it, and it’s definitely made every day special for me.”
Kansas Citians might want to watch for one scene in particular. In it, Hynes eats barbecue ... and he said that was moment for him.
He said he had “never had Kansas City barbecue, and I had it for the first time myself in that moment, which was terribly exciting,” he said.
Should we assume Donna Kelce didn’t make it?
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