The thing about filming a Christmas movie in the summer is that, well, it’s summer. Temperatures are not conducive to actors wearing wool coats and scarves, and the snow on the ground is going to be added in post.
The cast and crew who came to Chicago in July to film Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story — Hallmark‘s third Holiday Touchdown movie in collaboration with the NFL and Skydance Sports — faced those realities. The weather served up truly stifling heat, including a stretch of highs in the mid-90s, and a few days of air quality emergency due to wildfire smoke drifting across the upper Midwest.
Hallmark has filmed so many holiday movies in the summer months, however, that it’s developed a system for keeping people cool.
“Our wardrobe department has gotten us ice packs that are essentially on a spandex band, so that you can put them around your lower back,” Bears Love Story star Robert Buckley tells The Hollywood Reporter during a break in filming. “You basically have a giant block of ice on your lower back.”
Buckley’s co-star, Lyndsy Fonseca, and producer Andrew Gernhard also noted that the crew takes care of the actors. “We have a really great team around us, patting sweat down from us, grabbing our coats and giving us handheld fans” between takes, Fonseca says. Gernhard added that for scenes filmed outside, air-conditioned areas and water stations were on hand, and background actors would don winter gear only as long as necessary for takes before retreating to the cooling spots.
On the day THR visited the production, hidden ice belts weren’t necessary: Filming was taking place inside Halas Hall, the headquarters and practice facility for the Chicago Bears in suburban Lake Forest. The cast and crew filmed a charity auction scene to put the spotlight on Bears Care, the team’s charitable arm. Director Dustin Rikert worked efficiently, filming several takes of attendees filtering into the auction.
Highlighting the team’s community outreach is a feature of all three Holiday Touchdown films and a key piece of Hallmark’s partnership with the NFL. So is filming on location. The first two movies were shot in Kansas City (also Hallmark’s home base) and Buffalo, with the NFL’s Chiefs and Bills cooperating.
“We’re a storytelling brand, and we want the authenticity of the storytelling to come through,” Hallmark Media president Darren Abbott tells THR. “Part of that is making sure that we represent the community where the teams play and where the fandom comes to life. I think that’s about as important as any aspect.”
A Bears Love Story is the centerpiece of the first weekend of Hallmark’s 2026 “Countdown to Christmas” programming. It premieres Oct. 17 and centers on Avery (Fonseca), a freelance reporter visiting her mom and stepdad (Barbara Alyn Woods and Khary Payton) in Chicago. An ex-boyfriend, now platonic pal (Eric Lynch) at the (fictional) Chicago Herald offers her an assignment of profiling a Bears superfan, Darlene Donnelly (Marsha Mason). Buckley plays Matt, a Chicago firefighter and Darlene’s grandson, who has been badgering the paper to write about Darlene attending her 500th Bears game. He and Avery have a meet cute and — this being a Hallmark holiday rom-com — develop feelings for one another as he shows her the city and Darlene makes some not-very-subtle efforts to bring the two together.
“Are there aspects of our storytelling that follow a formula? Yes,” Abbott says. “There’s going to be great character development. There’s going to be the relationship and the love story. I mean, our movies are rom-coms. We have diversified our storytelling over the last few years, but at the same time, we don’t stray too far from what we know the audience wants. We happily embrace the Hallmark story elements. … But one of the ways that we’ve diversified our storytelling is through these types of brand partnerships. It shines a cultural spotlight on the story — puts us into the zeitgeist, if you will.”
The NFL partnership began in 2024 with A Chiefs Love Story, which grew out of the team’s social media staff making a video that riffed on Hallmark movies. Abbott and Hallmark saw that video and asked if the Chiefs would be interested in partnering. “The whole plan started moving really quickly from that point,” Abbott says.
It was then that Skydance Sports, a joint venture between Skydance and the NFL, got involved. “When the first call came in from the Chiefs saying that they had been approached about this idea from Hallmark, a lot of people [from the league] were like, ‘What does NFL have to do with Hallmark?’ It doesn’t seem like an overlap,” Jason Reed, head of scripted film and TV at Skydance Sports, tells THR. “A few of us were immediately like, ‘This is the greatest idea ever.’ Part of that is because at Skydance Sports, we’re tasked with expanding the demographics for the NFL — how do we get to a younger audience, how do we get to a nontraditional football audience? So immediately we were like, ‘This is a great idea. We have to lean into this as hard as we can.'”
A Bears Love Story also leans into its location: It’s almost certainly the first Hallmark movie in which the leads eat Italian beef and do shots of Malört. The film also makes good use of Chicago, showcasing locations downtown and in several neighborhoods.
“I think what makes these movies unique is the fact that they do they go with the culture, the town, the people,” says Gernhard, who also produced A Bills Love Story (along with a host of other Hallmark holiday movies). “What was great about the Bills is that we went to Buffalo and really got into the culture. It’s the same with the Bears. We’re staying in the city. We’re shooting in the city. We’re shooting at Soldier Field, at Halas Hall. We’re shooting at a firehouse. We’re shooting in the neighborhoods. When people see how well Hallmark crafted this for this city and for these people, for this culture, I think they’re really going to connect.”
As with the other Holiday Touchdown movies, A Bears Love Story features cameos by several current and former players — Cole Kmet, Colston Loveland, Caleb Wiliams and coach Ben Johnson from the current team and Bears greats Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary and Charles “Peanut” Tillman. Connie Payton, the widow of Bears Hall of Famer Walter Payton, also appears.
“It would be completely appropriate if they showed up and were uncomfortable or awkward or didn’t want to be here, and everyone has shown up and been game to play,” Buckley said of the Bears who appear in the movie. “I had a really funny moment because I’m a big fan of Colston Loveland. I had to constantly remind myself, ‘Be cool, be cool. You’re twice his age. Act like a professional.'”
Buckley and Fonseca are both Hallmark veterans, having appeared in more than a dozen films between them. They keep returning because the pace keeps them on their toes — most Hallmark movies have a three- to four-week filming schedule — and they keep having fun.
“There was a woman who was an extra, and she was just a diehard Hallmark fan,” Fonseca says. “She was almost crying, talking to me. I got Ashley Williams [another Hallmark regular] to do a FaceTime with her on the phone, and it just seemed to make her day. So that’s why we do it.”
Buckley adds, “I really like making a product that not only do I enjoy being a part of, but that brings joy to others. That is what I’m constantly hearing from fans of these movies — they go to them as a comfort. So if I can be a part of something that brings someone an hour and a half of joy on a bad day, or a good day, I’m all for it.”