Photo: Crown Media

Today’s movie news is sure to be major for all my fellow Andrew Walker & Jodie Sweetin fans!

We didn’t get a new *Hallmark* Christmas movie from Walker last year but — not only did he return this spring for “Bottled with Love”, he’ll also appear alongside Sweetin (“Finding Santa”, “Entertaining Christmas”) for the ‘most wonderful time of the year’!

Walker and Sweetin will lead “Merry and Bright”, the story of Cate (Sweetin), CEO of the Merry & Bright Candy Cane Company, who meets Gabe (Walker) during the busy Christmas season. She assumes Gabe is the suitor her well-meaning mother is trying to set her up with when in reality, he works for Empire Corporate Recovery, which has been hired to take a closer look at Merry & Bright’s operation and find ways to make the company more profitable. As Cate and Gabe begin to work together, they find ways to elevate the business and find that they have more in common than savvy business sense.

Although the network will air a new movie during it’s Christmas in July programming, I think it’s likely that we’ll see “Merry and Bright” premiere during the Countdown to Christmas lineup later this year.

This marks the ninth new Christmas movie announcement from Crown Media this year — following “The Christmas Song“, “Holiday for Heroes,” “The Christmas Company,” “Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses,” “Five Cards for Christmas,” “A Family Under The Christmas Tree,” a third installment to the ‘Graceland’ series and an untitled Blake Shelton-produced project.

Stay merry!