The past several months have been tough for fans of the many romantic movies on the Hallmark Channel. Though recognizable stars like Lacey Chabert find Hallmark’s films a “rewarding” experience, a number of others have decided to leave the channel behind, and signed deals with its quickly growing rival, GAC Media, which runs the GAC Family and GAC Living channels. But, this activity has also prompted Hallmark to begin signing other stars to deals of their own, and amid all of the shake-ups with famous faces like Candace Cameron Bure and Danica McKellar, Aimeé Teegarden has now signed her own deal with the company.
What Deal Did Aimeé Teegarden Sign With The Hallmark Channel?
According to Deadline, Aimeé Teegarden’s deal with the network is similar to those that some have signed recently, and she’s now inked an exclusive, multi-picture overall contract with Hallmark. We don’t know how many movies Teegarden is set to film for the network under her new deal, or how many years it might see her with the channel, but it’s likely that the new contract will keep Teegarden in Hallmark movies for a while.
While the actress, who’s probably still best known for playing teen Julie Taylor on Friday Night Lights, isn’t the biggest star on Hallmark, if you tend to tune in to the network’s movies on a regular basis it’s still incredibly likely that you’ve seen Teegarden more than once. Since 2018 she’s been in three films for Hallmark or Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, including A New Year’s Resolution and My Christmas Family Tree, which both aired in 2021. Teegarden is already set to star in an upcoming movie for 2022, Heart of the Matter, which will air on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on May 15.
As noted earlier, this move is likely so that Hallmark can stem the tide of stars who’ve been leaving the network prior to the all-important Christmas movie season. Between both of Hallmark’s stations with original content, they produce dozens upon dozens of new films for the holidays every year, and several of them will probably be moving into production soon, if they haven’t already.
Hallmark has already had some big losses of familiar faces, as not only have McKellar (who signed an exclusive deal with GAC Media) and Cameron Bure (her deal is non-exclusive, but does include holiday content and more) decamped for the company’s rival, but so have stars Jen Lilley (who had to defend her move to fans), Jessica Lowndes, and Trevor Donovan, with many others having appeared in at least one movie for GAC Family already, even without any kind of overall deals in place.
While the executives at Hallmark know that their stable of stars (like Chabert, who also signed an exclusive contract recently) will be very important to the success of their original content moving forward, and have begun making deals with their other popular actors like Aimeé Teegarden to keep them around, there are some potential positives behind the exits.
The network had increasingly come under fire for only representing a narrow view of romantic experiences, with complaints that people of color and the LGBTQ+ community were rarely or never openly represented in starring roles. Hallmark has been making moves to broaden its scope in that regard for the past couple of years, and one would hope that not being able to automatically rely on some of their previous go-to faces will only leave more room for new actors to tell new kinds of stories.
