A new Christmas favourite

The week leading up to Christmas is all about last minute Christmas shopping, end of the year staff parties and of course, Christmas movie nights.  Every year, most people seem to revisit the classic Christmas films such The Polar Express, Love Actually, Scrooge, Miracle on 34th Street, Elf, Home Alone and The Grinch.  To be honest, recently I wondered whether there would ever be another Christmas film that could meet the level of success of any of these classics...the answer remained no for a very long time.  Most Christmas films I seem to come across all repeat the same cliched love story with the much awaited happy ending (The Holiday).  In the last two years it seemed producers felt the need to include Princes' (A Christmas Prince) and Princesses (A Princess Switch) who's story line could be predicted after the first five minutes of the film.  I found myself enjoying Christmas cartoons such as Arthur broke Christmas and The Grinch Special more than I enjoyed actual movies.  
This year however, I feel we have been graced with what could potentially become a Christmas favourite; The Christmas Chronicles which was aired on Netflix on November 22nd and broke 20 million streams in one week!  The action packed holiday adventure movie stars Kurt Russel (most recently known for his work in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) playing Santa Claus. It's produced by Chris Columbus, who happens to be the same director as Home Alone... is the success of this film a coincidence? I think not.  Ted  Sarandos, who is the chief content officer of Netlix said; 
Even in his successful career, [Kurt Russell] has never had that many people see one of his movies in the first week ever, That’s a testimony to what we can bring to the market for storytellers today that we couldn’t have ten years ago.”
 While I can't blame Sarandos for priding himself for the success, I don't quite agree with this statement.  If this movie had not been premiered on Netflix, i'm pretty sure it would have done very well nonetheless because the film itself brings something relatively new to the table.  This being said however, I hope movie-makers don't forget the joy and magic of Christmas movies (that doesn't need to only portray itself through romance) and continue to spread this magic through the beauty of film at such a wonderful time of year!

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