Three Wiser Men and a Boy: Or, How to Make a Hallmark Christmas Movie in the Middle of April (2024)

It's an unusually balmy day in April at a local high school just outside of Vancouver. School is in session; students race down the hallways after each bell and socialize at their lockers between classes. At lunchtime, the cafeteria buzzes with schooltime gossip. But nestled inside a tiny, dimly-lit theater past one of the school's narrow corridors, the summer-like weather is barely evident. Step across the imaginary threshold of the theater entryway, and you're met with a perfectly decorated Christmas tree, an exorbitant number of holiday garnishes, and a kitschy poster promoting a Grinch-inspired play. Suddenly. you're transported to another world — and season.

Once you're inside the cozy theater, a hundred seats face a stage that's been fully outfitted for a children's holiday school production with homemade props and set decor. Suspended from the ceiling in a corner is Paul Campbell, dressed in a thick red-and-green patchwork Christmas suit idly swinging from a harness as he recites his lines — throwing in a well-timed ad-lib or workshopping a crowd-sourced joke to the delight of the sparse crowd, which includes director Terry Ingram, co-stars, and crew members sprinkled throughout the room. It's almost impossible not to laugh as Campbell, who repeats the take at least half a dozen times, does his best to create a memorable comedic moment at a climactic turning point in the movie.

The movie is Hallmark Channel's Three Wiser Men and a Boy, the anticipated sequel to 2022's most-watched basic cable TV film Three Wise Men and a Baby, and TV Guide is one of the lucky few invited to spend two full days on set as filming wound down. The follow-up, which premieres Saturday, Nov. 23 as one of Hallmark's tentpole films this year, reunites network favorites Campbell, Tyler Hynes, and Andrew Walker as Brenner brothers Stephan, Taylor, and Luke, respectively. Soon after the first film was crowned the network's biggest hit in recent memory, Hallmark wasted no time finding a reason to bring the trio back together, soft-greenlighting the sequel in December 2022.

"Sequels are really difficult," Campbell, who co-wrote the script with creative collaborator Kimberley Sustad (she makes a cameo in the film), told TV Guide during a break from filming. Seated on a hallway bench as students scurry past to go to their next destinations, he said it took a year to develop the sequel "to get it right [and] to figure out how to recreate some of the magic, and tell a story that actually needs to be told as opposed to Brenners go to Vegas or Disneyland." The passionate fan response to Three Wise Men and a Baby was "unexpected," he admitted. "Even on the network level, nobody had any real expectations for it other than, 'Let's see what happens.'"

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Three Wiser Men and a Boy picks up five years after the original film. The Brenner brothers are older, a little bit wiser (maybe), and appear to have their ducks in a row (debatable). Cracks begin to form when their mother, Barbara (Margaret Colin), introduces her new boyfriend to her sons, unraveling insecurities and feelings they've bottled up about their own lives. Amidst all this, Luke steps in as the replacement director of his son's (Miles Marthaller) school holiday musical production. Overwhelmed, Luke recruits his brothers' help to make the musical a merry success.

"Our first three, four days [on set], there was this unspoken pressure," Walker told TV Guide during a production lull while lounging at one of the circular tables in an unused home economics classroom. "We were looking at scenes that we were doing, rewriting moments, adding moments, and making sure that we were being authentically these characters again and falling back into who these guys are." The mood during those early days on set was surprisingly "serious," he admitted — hardly the energy you'd expect for a film of this kind. "Our greatest gift would be for fans to walk away and say this was just as good or better than the first one."

Ask Hynes the same question and he had a more pragmatic answer. The actor, who was in costume in a candy cane bodysuit and matching green shorts (he'd film a slo-mo hallway sequence with Campbell, Walker, and Marthaller moments later), described his approach to making this film like "brick laying." "With these movies, you never quite know as an actor. You only have so much you can do in order to create a positive outcome," Hynes said. "When it comes to doing this again, there's risk involved because perceptions are different and time has passed, so it ends up being a roll of the dice."

"I don't get too neurotic about expectations," he added. "I think if we all show up and figure it out together, we'll get somewhere in the vicinity. For a moment, it was a little touch and go, but now that we're in Week 3, [the pieces] started falling in place again."

It certainly helps that Campbell, Hynes, and Walker are good friends in real life, too. In Hynes and Walker's case, they're literally family. Campbell acknowledged one vital factor that contributed to the success of the first that he hopes translates here: the trio's undeniable chemistry. "We all work very well together and we have three very distinct personalities," he said. "It's fun to watch us get into situations together and see the different ways that each individual responds and reacts."

The late afternoon sun cuts through a cloudless blue sky as filming moves outdoors, with temperatures reaching 70 degrees. Background actors dressed in heavy winter coats and scarves stand on their marks outside the main entrance of the high school, waiting for the director to yell "action." Campbell, Hynes, and Walker — all in cold-weather gear — mill about on the sidewalk, joking around and commenting on the abnormally warm weather as they wait for their cues. "It's so hot!" Walker exclaims at one point as he takes off his jacket in between takes.

Moments earlier, crew members were busily hosing down the pavement to give it a slick December feel. A designated ice crew, who wore T-shirts and shorts due to the sweltering sun, shoveled out real fish ice from a wheelbarrow, carefully placing patches along the sidewalk and by the main school doors to enhance the wintery environment. A few feet away, smaller handfuls of ice were being placed on a long piece of cardboard — held up by two makeshift stands on either side of the camera — to give the illusion of real snow to frame an establishing shot that opens the scene.

Filming a Christmas movie in the springtime is old hat for Campbell, Hynes, and Walker, who have collectively starred in nearly three dozen yuletide films for Hallmark. "This is luxury," Walker said of getting into the holiday mood in April. "I'm going to be shooting another Christmas movie in June [Hallmark Channel's Jingle Bell Run] — riding horseback with three layers on in 100 degrees — this is nothing."

It isn't difficult to channel the holidays when you're surrounded by festive decor on set, even with Christmas still months away. "You're in a house filled with Balsam Hill Christmas trees and ornaments, it's tough not to get into the Christmas mood," Walker said. "That's what I love about shooting Hallmark movies, I can celebrate Christmas sometimes three times [a year]." By the same token, Hynes said he tries to find "something unique or special" about each Hallmark Christmas movie he headlines in order to keep them feeling fresh.

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There will be no shortage of noel-themed puns and seasonal callbacks in Three Wiser Men and a Boy. One of those callbacks will be the much-awaited follow-up to the memorable Sugar Plum Dance performed by Campbell, Hynes, and Walker in the first movie. "There were a lot of talks, like, how do we incorporate it into the [sequel]? Do we just do the dance again?" Campbell said, pausing for a beat. "I would say, we have done a very good job incorporating that [dance] into this movie in a brand new brilliant way. It will be equally satisfying, but in a completely different way."

Though the script serves as the foundation for the movie, the three stars recognize that it's a collaborative effort; usually the best idea or suggestion — no matter who or where it comes from — wins. "We have a moment with the kids in our [holiday musical] rehearsals and it doesn't go well. And Tyler — it was unscripted — to the kids was like, 'Wrap Paul up with wrapping paper! Wrap Drew up with ribbon'" Walker recalled when the trio gathered together during a late afternoon lunch break. Adding to the stress of the situation was the fact that they "had no time left" to finish out their day when the impromptu idea came up, Hynes chimed in.

"Basically the kids overthrow us and the rehearsal, and it's an amazing moment. It was like Kindergarten Cop," Walker shared. Campbell called the scene "extraordinary, and [it] will be one of the biggest moments in the movie — and it was so spontaneous. We can think through ahead of time as much as we want, but there's a magic that happens when you're in the middle of the scene on the third take and you have an idea. There's a real authenticity to it because it's not prepped."

Comedic moments are peppered throughout Three Wiser Men and a Boy, but Hynes highlighted an emotional moment featuring Colin, who plays the Brenner matriarch, who gives a crucial speech about motherhood at an important point in the sequel. "When she did that scene, Paul was in tears immediately. By Take 4, she had me," Hynes said. "My mom read the script and she said, 'That's the speech. That's the thing every mother is going to relate to. That's the emotional center of this movie.'"

Naturally, questions surfaced on set about whether a third Brenner brothers movie is realistically in the cards. Considering the popularity of Campbell, Hynes, and Walker with the Hallmark audience, demand will likely be there. "Maybe there's a third one. I'm not going to say never," Campbell pondered, "but at the moment, I don't know. I'm sure the network will go, 'You're going to do it.'" Walker was similarly cautious with his optimism, leaving the door slightly ajar for the possibility of a Brenner threequel. "We'll have to reassess, figure things out. It's different enough to do a sequel, let alone a third. We just don't want people to get sick of us."

"I was joking earlier, because we're [filming] in a school, would it be fun to go back to high school for [a third movie]? But we're too old to do that. We don't have the budgets on these movies," Hynes joked, referencing the de-aging technology filmmakers have used to age down their stars. "Because we tell these stories on a certain budget, there are a lot of constraints. Add in a sequel and it becomes exponentially more complicated. There are logistics that make achieving a good experience for everybody at home more daunting than it's worth sometimes."

He offered an alternative solution if Three Wiser Men and a Boy ends up being the last in the franchise. "The next adventure should be us in a totally new circumstance, see what kind of fruit that bears. That has the potential to reinvent itself because I do love these guys and it is that easy in terms of the work — if we have the right words and the right script, us doing our thing is the easiest thing ever. That's a really beautiful frontier that is worth exploring."

"Down the road, if folks really want a trilogy, then maybe," Hynes said, "but it'd probably be one of those things where you come back later, like The Godfather."

Three Wiser Men and a Boy premieres Saturday, Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel.