I may have stumbled on a Christmas prince TV movie shared universe
Thanks to all of the Christmas made-for-TV movie trailers I've watched, Youtube started recommending me other Christmas movie trailers. And one of those trailers was for A Christmas Princess, a new Christmas movie that follows the classic Christmas movie plot of an ordinary woman meeting and falling in love with a prince from a vaguely British-esque country. But there is one important difference - the female lead is black.
Honestly, given that romance novels have already started to capitalize on the real-life marriage of Prince Harry and half-black Meghan Markle, it's kind of amazing that it took that long for Christmas movies to catch up. Then again, as I've written before, it's not until a few years ago that Christmas movies had any black leads period.
As I watched the trailer, I couldn't help but notice the name of the country the fictional prince came from - something that sounded like "Edgemet," or maybe "Edgemere." Because I am kind of intrigued by all the fictional kingdoms those Christmas princes come from, and how every movie feels a need to make up a new one. I can't help but think of official Marvel Universe world maps, which try to cram all of the fictional European kingdoms Marvel writers came up with over the years.
A Christmas Princess was made for Ion Television by a production company I haven't heard of before - Hybrid LLC. And, just out of curiously, I decided to check out their Youtube channel, where I came across a trailer for another Christmas Prince movie they made for Ion Television - A Christmas in a Royal Fashion. And, as I watched the trailer, I was shocked to realize that this prince came from "Edgemere," which sounded an awful lot like "Edgemet."
At this point, I was like "HOLY CRAP, EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED, JUST HOW DEEP DOES THIS RABBIT HOLE GO" and kept scrolling down. As soon as I saw another movie that seemed to involve a romance with a prince, I clicked on the trailer - and this prince came from something that sounded like "Edgemere," too.
The prince in the next movie down the list (A Prince for Christmas, a Starz television movie that I've seen before and actually kind of liked) came from "Balemont." The prince from My Christmas Prince came from "Madelvia." But the idea of three Christmas prince movie featuring the same fictional kingdom intrigued me. Especially since, aside from Netflix's nascent A Christmas Prince universe, any kind of connections between Christmas movies are pretty rare.
Now, because I am a journalist, I did try to verify my findings. According to the Hallmark Channel's page for My Summer Prince, that particular prince came from "Edgemere", while A Christmas in Royal Fashion Ion Television page gives it as "Edgemoor" and A Christmas Princess page doesn't give the spelling one way or another, but, looking more carefully at the trailer, the newspaper the queen is holding spells it as "Edgemont."
Looking at the movies' Internet Movie Database listings, one finds a few common links. Peter Sullivan has "story by" credits for "My Summer Prince" and "A Christmas in Royal Fashion," and he served as a co-producer for all three movies. Jeffrey Schenck is listed as an executive producer for all three movies, as well as story credit for "My Summer Prince" and "Christmas in a Royal Fashion." And while IMDB doesn't currently list any writing credits for "A Christmas Princess," it does indicate that Fred Olen Ray, the movie's director and producer, directed and wrote "A Christmas in Royal Fashion". In fairness, all three men were involved in quite a lot of TV movies produced by Hybrid and other companies, including several non-Edge Christmas prince movies. (Edited to add: And, upon further digging, Sullivan and Schenck are executives at Hybrid, so it's not surprising that they have their fingerprints on a lot of Hybrid movies)
I think the most likely scenario here is that Edgemont/Edgemoor/Edgemere just happen to sound similar because those folks make a lot of movies, and when they start to blur together, some kind of subconscious repetition may be inevitable. And I do have to keep in mind that not all of those movies were made for the same network. But a not-so-small part of me wishes that there was something more to it. That maybe there was some kind of Hybrid Edgemont/moor/mere universe.
Romance novels have this long tradition of book series that follow members of the same family (or, in rarer cases, group of friends) finding love, with characters from one book appearing in other books. It wound be kind of neat to see movies follow their lead. Have, for example, different movies follow different princes of Edgemere finding love. The connection would be a treat for the fans, it might save on props, and the map of fictional TV-movie-verse Europe would be a little less cluttered.
Click to viewHonestly, given that romance novels have already started to capitalize on the real-life marriage of Prince Harry and half-black Meghan Markle, it's kind of amazing that it took that long for Christmas movies to catch up. Then again, as I've written before, it's not until a few years ago that Christmas movies had any black leads period.
As I watched the trailer, I couldn't help but notice the name of the country the fictional prince came from - something that sounded like "Edgemet," or maybe "Edgemere." Because I am kind of intrigued by all the fictional kingdoms those Christmas princes come from, and how every movie feels a need to make up a new one. I can't help but think of official Marvel Universe world maps, which try to cram all of the fictional European kingdoms Marvel writers came up with over the years.
A Christmas Princess was made for Ion Television by a production company I haven't heard of before - Hybrid LLC. And, just out of curiously, I decided to check out their Youtube channel, where I came across a trailer for another Christmas Prince movie they made for Ion Television - A Christmas in a Royal Fashion. And, as I watched the trailer, I was shocked to realize that this prince came from "Edgemere," which sounded an awful lot like "Edgemet."
At this point, I was like "HOLY CRAP, EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED, JUST HOW DEEP DOES THIS RABBIT HOLE GO" and kept scrolling down. As soon as I saw another movie that seemed to involve a romance with a prince, I clicked on the trailer - and this prince came from something that sounded like "Edgemere," too.
The prince in the next movie down the list (A Prince for Christmas, a Starz television movie that I've seen before and actually kind of liked) came from "Balemont." The prince from My Christmas Prince came from "Madelvia." But the idea of three Christmas prince movie featuring the same fictional kingdom intrigued me. Especially since, aside from Netflix's nascent A Christmas Prince universe, any kind of connections between Christmas movies are pretty rare.
Now, because I am a journalist, I did try to verify my findings. According to the Hallmark Channel's page for My Summer Prince, that particular prince came from "Edgemere", while A Christmas in Royal Fashion Ion Television page gives it as "Edgemoor" and A Christmas Princess page doesn't give the spelling one way or another, but, looking more carefully at the trailer, the newspaper the queen is holding spells it as "Edgemont."
Looking at the movies' Internet Movie Database listings, one finds a few common links. Peter Sullivan has "story by" credits for "My Summer Prince" and "A Christmas in Royal Fashion," and he served as a co-producer for all three movies. Jeffrey Schenck is listed as an executive producer for all three movies, as well as story credit for "My Summer Prince" and "Christmas in a Royal Fashion." And while IMDB doesn't currently list any writing credits for "A Christmas Princess," it does indicate that Fred Olen Ray, the movie's director and producer, directed and wrote "A Christmas in Royal Fashion". In fairness, all three men were involved in quite a lot of TV movies produced by Hybrid and other companies, including several non-Edge Christmas prince movies. (Edited to add: And, upon further digging, Sullivan and Schenck are executives at Hybrid, so it's not surprising that they have their fingerprints on a lot of Hybrid movies)
I think the most likely scenario here is that Edgemont/Edgemoor/Edgemere just happen to sound similar because those folks make a lot of movies, and when they start to blur together, some kind of subconscious repetition may be inevitable. And I do have to keep in mind that not all of those movies were made for the same network. But a not-so-small part of me wishes that there was something more to it. That maybe there was some kind of Hybrid Edgemont/moor/mere universe.
Romance novels have this long tradition of book series that follow members of the same family (or, in rarer cases, group of friends) finding love, with characters from one book appearing in other books. It wound be kind of neat to see movies follow their lead. Have, for example, different movies follow different princes of Edgemere finding love. The connection would be a treat for the fans, it might save on props, and the map of fictional TV-movie-verse Europe would be a little less cluttered.