Here’s everything a lifelong Dolly fan needs to know to lock in seats, plus the delightful story of the TV host who wants in on the show so badly she auditioned live on national television.

Mark your calendar: presale starts Wednesday, July 8

The very first chance to buy tickets kicks off on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. ET through the Fan and Capital One Presale. If you’re a Capital One cardholder or a member of the official Dolly fan community, this is your golden ticket window—and honestly, this is where the best seats are going to go. Bookmark the official Dolly Musical Box Office and Dolly Parton’s official website now, because 10 a.m. ET is going to move quickly.

If you miss the presale, don’t panic. The General Public On-Sale opens Friday, July 10, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. ET. But between us, if you have any way to access that Capital One Presale, take it. This is Dolly. On Broadway. Telling her own life story. Fans are going to descend on this the way they descended on Dollywood the day it opened.

The initial ticket block covers performances through Sunday, November 21, 2027, giving you nearly a full year of dates to choose from once previews begin.

The dates you’ll want to circle

Preview performances begin Monday, December 7, 2026, at Broadway’s storied St. James Theatre. The official opening night celebration is set for January 19, 2027—which, fittingly, is Dolly’s 81st birthday. Could there be a more perfect way for the girl from the Smoky Mountains to blow out her candles?

For fans who’ve been following Dolly since her Porter Wagoner Show days, seeing her step onto a Broadway stage as the subject of her own musical on her birthday feels almost too poetic to be real. But that’s Dolly for you.

Jenna Bush Hager threw her wig in the ring

If you needed proof that Dolly-mania has reached full boil, look no further than Jenna Bush Hager’s now-legendary audition. The Today With Hoda & Jenna cohost, 44, went for it live on the December 9 episode, encouraged by her longtime friend Hoda Kotb.

“I just feel like it would be a dream, Dolly, if my friend Jenna Bush Hager might have a shot at something. So, Jenna’s gonna try,” Kotb, 61, said on air.

Bush Hager pulled on a platinum blonde curly wig (which Hoda cheerfully compared to George Washington’s hair) and, rather than sing, delivered a delightfully dramatic reading of “Jolene.”

“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene / I’m beggin’ of you, please don’t take my man,” she recited, before continuing through the opening verse: “Your beauty is beyond compare / With flaming locks of auburn hair / With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green.”

After taking her bow to applause from the studio crew, Bush Hager made her ambitions charmingly clear. She said she’d love “a little, small part,” maybe as a member of the ensemble. Kotb had her own casting suggestion for her cohost: “Just [put her] in the back, drinking coffee.”

The audition was submitted under Dolly’s official casting call hashtag, #SearchForDolly, part of an open call Dolly herself launched to find fresh talent for the show. “Whether you’re chasing your dreams from a small town, or you’ve spent years performing on stages across the country, I want to give you the chance to help me bring my story to Broadway, and maybe even play me,” Dolly said in her announcement video.

Will Jenna land the part? Probably not. But the fact that the granddaughter of a president is out here doing dramatic readings of “Jolene” tells you everything about the cultural moment this musical is stepping into.

What Dolly promises the show will be

For fans who’ve read every biography, watched every documentary and cried through every rendition of “I Will Always Love You,” Dolly is promising something deeper than the highlight reel. The musical traces her journey from her “barefoot beginnings” in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee to global superstardom, and Dolly says the show goes beyond the surface glamour to explore what she has lived, loved and lost along the way.

She co-wrote the book with two-time Emmy Award winner Maria S. Schlatter, her collaborator on the 2020 Netflix film Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square. This is not a jukebox musical, Dolly has emphasized. New songs written specifically for the stage sit alongside the hits that made her a legend.

And oh, the hits. The setlist includes the four songs that fans consider sacred text:

• “9 to 5”
• “Jolene”
• “I Will Always Love You”
• “Coat of Many Colors”

If you know the stories behind those songs, you know why they hit so hard. “Coat of Many Colors,” as Dolly has shared in her 2020 book Songteller, was inspired by the coat her mother sewed her and the bullying she endured because of it. “That little song is like a world of things,” Dolly wrote. “It teaches about bullying, about love, about acceptance, about good parents.” And “I Will Always Love You”? That was her heartfelt goodbye to Porter Wagoner after seven years on his TV show. Seeing these moments dramatized on a Broadway stage is going to wreck fans in the best possible way.

The dream team behind the curtain

The production is directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, with choreography by Emmy Award winner Mandy Moore. The show originally premiered under the title Dolly: An Original Musical in a record-breaking, sold-out run at Belmont University’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in Nashville. Since then, the creative team has been reworking the script and pacing to make it Broadway-ready.

The full Broadway cast has not been announced yet, but the Nashville developmental run famously used three different actresses—Katie Rose Clarke, Carrie St. Louis and Quinn Titcomb—to portray Dolly at different stages of her life. Whether that structure carries over is one of the biggest unanswered questions for fans.

Your game plan for tomorrow morning

Set your alarm for 9:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday, July 8. Have your Capital One card ready if you have one. Have the box office site loaded. And take a breath—because if you’ve been a Dolly fan through the wigs, the rhinestones, Dollywood, the duets and every gorgeous, generous chapter of her career, this is the bucket-list night you’ve been waiting for.

Break a leg, y’all. She’d want it that way.

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The film will follow Chabert’s as Lindsey, who embarks on a family Christmas trip to Walt Disney World. In an unexpected turn of events, Lindsey finds herself lodging right alongside Philip, played by Travis Van Winkle, whom she had a bad first date with. Despite their reservations about one another, the magic of Disney might just be the thing they needed to bring them together. 

In the trailer, Lindsey is seen tossing a coin into a fountain. “I wish for a little Christmas magic,” she states. “Enough to find love. The kind that’s right out of a fairytale.” As the teaser progresses, Lindsey and Philip’s relationship is revealed, and it seems as though it doesn’t take long for their tension to turn into something else entirely. 

“There’s something happening to you guys,” urges another character in the trailer. “He’s the Beast to your Belle, the Kristoff to your Anna, the Lady to your tramp.” 

While Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True promises Disney magic and Christmas romance, Lacey’s resume is chock full of heartfelt holiday love stories. Before you tune in to all she has planned this coming year, take a walk down memory lane and check out some of our favorite Lacey Chabert Hallmark Christmas movies. It’s time for a Christmas in July binge!

‘A Merry Scottish Christmas’ (2023)

In this beloved Hallmark Christmas flick, Lacey Chabert and Scott Wolf star as siblings who embark on a trip to Scotland. Upon their arrival and reunion with their mother, they learn that she is a Duchess, prompting an unexpected whirlwind amidst the holiday season. Watch the film on Hallmark+ or catch it airing on the Hallmark Channel on July 23 at 8/7c. 

‘A Christmas Melody’ (2015)

A Hallmark Christmas movie starring Lacey Chabert and Mariah Carey? It doesn’t get more festive than that! Carey directed this flick, and Chabert stars as a fashion designer who’s forced to shut down her Manhattan boutique and return to her hometown with her daughter. Though the transition is difficult and the presence of her high school rival (played by Mariah Carey) complicates this new chapter, she leans on the local music teacher, Danny, and her Aunt Sarah for the hope she needs. Watch it on Hallmark+ or on the Hallmark Channel on July 16 at 2/1c. 

‘Christmas Waltz’ (2020)

Starring Lacey Chabert and Will Kemp, this love story follows Avery, whose fairytale Christmas wedding is called off. However, a handsome dance instructor helps her find joy amid heartache. Watch it on July 9 at 6/5c or catch it on Hallmark+. 

‘A Royal Christmas’ (2014)

Emily, a seamstress, lives a content life with her boyfriend Leo, but her world is rattled by the discovery that he’s actually a prince. When she makes her way to his family’s castle around Christmas, Leo’s mother shows her dislike for Emily, a commoner, complicating the relationship. Catch it on the Hallmark Channel on July 16 at 8/7c or see it on Hallmark+. 

‘The Sweetest Christmas’ (2017)

Kylie, a dedicated pastry chef, makes it to the finals in the American Gingerbread Competition, but when her oven breaks, she’s forced to reach out to her ex, who owns a pizzeria. He allows her to use his oven and sparks fly yet again—but where will this new chapter take them? Tune in on the Hallmark Channel on July 16 at 6/5c or watch it on Hallmark+. 

While there are countless other Lacey Chabert Hallmark Christmas movies to peruse, these offer a glimpse at her range and talent. Grab your coziest blanket, queue up these feel-good films and let the Christmas magic begin—even if it’s still July!

The best part? Applying to be an extra is open to real fans and you can apply right now to get on the set. Learn more about how you can become an extra in Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story including how to apply, what the requirements are and more about the casting process!

What roles are the Hallmark film casting for?

While the stars of this new Holiday Touchdown installment haven’t been announced just yet, filming is just around the corner and the production is in need of a few extras. Hallmark is looking to fill the stands by casting football fans of the Chicago Bears. The rate for extras is $136.40 for up to 8 hours of filming, while the fitting rate is $34.10 for up to 2 hours.

If you are looking to apply to be an extra, the crew is searching for football fans, either male or female of any ethnicity. You must be 18 years or older to apply and you need to have an EP casting profile to be considered.

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What to expect

For those who end up being cast as an extra, there are a few things you can expect from the day of filming. Although this is a Christmas and winter-themed film, the project is being shot in July, so expect it to be a bit toasty outside.

Filming dates will be on Tuesday, July 7 and Wednesday, July 8 for a daytime shoot, which can be expected to be a 12 hour day. The location for filming will take place right in Chicago, Illinois. There will be some fittings, but not every extra cast has to come in for a fitting.

How to apply

If you plan on applying to be an extra for Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story, there are a few things you need to be aware of before submitting your information. To apply, you must complete your EP Casting Portal Profile and send an email to 4starcasting@gmail.com with the following information:

Make sure to be specific, answer all of the required questions and submit any photos that are asked, otherwise your submission may be deleted.

Be sure to apply and tune into Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story, which is scheduled to premiere in December 2026.

Rhinestone followed Parton’s Jake Farris, a country singer desperate to escape her nightclub contract at the Manhattan club Rhinestone. To do it, she makes a reckless bet with her boss (played by Rob Leibman): give her two weeks, and she can turn any man off the street into a country singer good enough to perform at the club. The man she chooses is Nick Martinelli, a wisecracking cab driver played by Stallone.

The joke, of course, was the inversion. Parton—one of country music’s biggest stars—would play mentor and ringmaster, while Stallone, then at the peak of his action-hero fame, would swap boxing gloves and combat fatigues for cowboy boots and country songs. But even he understood he was taking a major risk, though that may have been what appealed to him. 

“I’ll never forget the first time I came in the door she was dressed all in black and had a meat cleaver,” he said at the time of working with Parton. “If you look around, there is so much absurdity, there’s so much fun, that we try to pull it out.”

A pre-release interview in The Daily Breeze captured his mindset well. He openly hoped audiences would understand the joke and embrace a lighter side of him that had rarely appeared onscreen—a failed experiment he’d tried in 1977 with Paradise Alley. But flash forward to 2006, and Stallone would reveal that the version of Rhinestone he originally envisioned was somewhat different from the one audiences ultimately saw. 

“I must tell everyone right now that originally the director was supposed to be Mike Nichols,” he recalled. “That was the intention and it was supposed to be shot in New York, down and dirty with Dolly and I with gutsy mannerisms performed like two antagonists brought together by fate.”

That version sounds notably sharper and more grounded than the film that reached theaters. Less broad comedy, more grit and culture clash. It also sounds much closer to the kind of material Stallone later admitted would have suited him better.

“I certainly would’ve steered clear of comedy unless it was dark—Belgian chocolate dark,” he said. “Silly comedy didn’t work for me. Would anybody pay to see John Wayne in a whimsical farce? Not likely. I would stay more true to who I am and what the audience would prefer rather than trying to stretch out and waste a lot of time and people’s patience.”

Dolly’s comfort zone

By 1984, Parton had already proven herself as more than a country superstar. Hits like 9 to 5 and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas had established her as a legitimate film presence, and Rhinestone offered something especially appealing because it allowed her to combine both worlds. “I think Rhinestone was the best, because I got to write the songs, I got to supervise the music, I got to work with my people,” she said in The Flint Journal. “And when I met Sylvester Stallone, I loved him instantly. We just struck up a wonderful lasting friendship. I loved his energy and his personality. He was very protective of me.”

Like many people, Parton wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from Stallone in a comedy. “I wondered myself, because of the role he played, if he would be funny, if he really could do humor,” she said. “And he had me laughing; I couldn’t even do my scenes. They just left my laughing in, because I was laughing in places where I wasn’t supposed to.” 

On set, Parton appears to have experienced the movie as playful, loose and collaborative—a warm, funny experiment built around an unlikely but surprisingly enjoyable partnership. But behind the scenes, not everyone was having the same experience. Director Bob Clark, coming off successes like Porky’s and A Christmas Story, appeared to be trying to steer the film toward something coherent, but by release, it was clear the movie had changed significantly during production. 

“I flew down to Nashville and had a talk with Sly,” Clark said of Stallone. “He assured me that he didn’t want to interfere with the direction, that he wanted to be directed. Sly said he realized this was a comedy, not a Rocky, and that he wanted to be told how to do it. He had been put in the position of helping with the direction and he didn’t want to. So I read the script and thought to myself, ‘Here’s something I can do, a challenge I can meet.’ My ego prompted me to take on the assignment. Only later did I realize how absurd it was for me to try such a thing.”

Field of Dreams screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson was far more direct about his experience. He believed the movie audiences saw was dramatically different from the one he originally wrote. According to the Houston Chronicle, Robinson described his screenplay as having “subtle humor, intelligence, less broad comedy, caricature and farce.” He was blunt about what happened, calling the production “a textbook example of a studio willingly sacrificing the quality of a script for what was perceived as the marketability of star casting.”

He eventually decided to speak publicly. “I thought a long time before speaking out,” he said. “Of course the conventional wisdom is that you don’t open your mouth, but I was having a hard time living with that. I would rather take the heat for saying what I believe and for telling the truth.”

The world meets ‘Rhinestone’

When Rhinestone finally opened in June 1984, the response was mixed at best and brutal at worst. Some critics found it mildly entertaining, with The Oregonian describing it as a “not perfect disaster” and noting that occasional amusing moments kept the film from total collapse. But most reviews circled the same core problem: Rhinestone never seemed entirely sure what kind of movie it wanted to be.

The critics were decidedly kinder to Parton than Stallone, with review after review praising Parton’s warmth, charm and natural ease in the material, while he absorbed most of the criticism. Many reviewers simply couldn’t accept him as Nick Martinelli. Stallone had committed fully to the performance, but the role required audiences to embrace a version of the actor about as far removed from Rocky or Rambo as you could get.  And the box office reflected that disconnect. Despite the star power of its leads, Rhinestone opened weakly and quickly became a commercial disappointment as well as one of the more curious misfires of the 1980s.

When Rocky met Dolly, the result was strange, messy and often baffling. But it was never boring.

But Grease, it turns out, wasn’t her first film. Eight years earlier, long before she and John Travolta lit up movie screens, Newton-John made her feature film debut in a project so unusual that even today it sounds like something out of an alternate Hollywood history. It was called Toomorrow, a science-fiction musical about a young pop group whose music is capable of saving an alien civilization. Behind it were James Bond producer Harry Saltzman and music impresario Don Kirshner, the man whose remarkable track record already included helping to launch Neil Diamond’s career and co-creating The Monkees.

They weren’t just making a movie, they were trying to create the next great pop phenomenon. When Saltzman and Kirshner unveiled Toomorrow in February 1969 at New York’s Rainbow Grill, they weren’t thinking small. The music group had been assembled after what was described as a six-month worldwide talent search, with candidates reportedly narrowed through “computer analysis” (in 1969!) before the final four members were selected. Their ambitions extended well beyond records or a single film, with plans calling for a multimedia empire that would include feature films, merchandise, clothing, games and even a cosmetics line.

Insofar as Kirshner was concerned, the timing couldn’t have been better. “Ever since The Beatles became big business, leaving behind their image as exciting, real people, no genuine super-group has come along to take their place,” he said. “We feel the time is now ripe for such a group.”

Saltzman saw the same opportunity. According to Robert Sellers’ When Harry Met Cubby, the Bond producer hoped Toomorrow would “fill a void for 14-year-olds to 30s” created by The Beatles’ breakup. It was an enormous goal, but then Saltzman rarely thought in small terms. While his producing partner Albert R. Broccoli was increasingly focused on the James Bond series, Saltzman constantly pursued ambitious projects outside the 007 franchise, convinced the next big success was always just around the corner.

Finding the right performers

The eventual lineup featured American drummer Karl Chambers, English pianist Vic Cooper, Georgia-born guitarist Ben Thomas and a 20-year-old Australian singer named Olivia Newton-John. She had already enjoyed modest success in Britain and had performed with singing partner Pat Carroll, but she was still years away from international stardom. But Saltzman was convinced he had found something special.

According to a 1970 interview, Newton-John was already under contract when he decided he wanted her for the project. “It cost £15,000 to buy out her existing contract and pay off the original girl,” he explained. “She’s worth every penny.”

Few people outside the music business had heard of Olivia Newton-John at the time, but Kirshner reportedly recognized her potential immediately after her audition in Saltzman’s office.

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Now they needed someone to turn an increasingly bizarre idea into a movie. Saltzman found his man in veteran British director Val Guest, whose résumé included everything from Hammer horror films to the acclaimed science-fiction drama The Day the Earth Caught Fire. When the producer called to pitch the project, he didn’t ease into the conversation. Instead, he posed a question that Guest never forgot: “How would you like to make the first outer space musical?”

Guest later admitted he probably should have walked away right then. Instead, he accepted the assignment, but it didn’t take long for him to realize he had inherited a much bigger challenge than directing an offbeat musical. The screenplay he’d been given, written by novelist David Benedictus, wasn’t working for him. Saltzman agreed. According to Sellers, the producer quietly asked Guest to begin writing an entirely new script while Benedictus continued working on the original, unaware his version had already been abandoned. It was an awkward situation that eventually left Guest taking the blame when Benedictus discovered what had happened.

If the script needed rebuilding, the concept remained intact: The members of Toomorrow played art students who form a band to pay their way through college. Their music attracts the attention of an alien living secretly on Earth, who kidnaps the group because the sound waves produced by their songs can save his home planet from extinction.

Even by late-1960s standards, it was an unusual premise, which somehow seemed to fit Saltzman perfectly. When Toomorrow was announced, it wasn’t sold simply as another pop movie, but rather as the start of a series. In fact, Olivia Newton-John later recalled that the producers were already talking about future installments, including a Western musical. The film audiences eventually saw was only supposed to be the first chapter.

Where things went wrong

The production itself looked impressive on paper. Beyond Guest, Hugo Montenegro (Hurry Sundown, Lady in Cement) was brought in to compose the score with Kirshner overseeing the music. Saltzman supplied the financing and production experience that had helped make James Bond one of the biggest franchises in the world. It should have been an ideal combination, but almost from the beginning, the project became increasingly difficult. 

Years later, Guest remembered that Saltzman and Kirshner had reached the point where “they didn’t talk to each other, they didn’t like each other. It was an absolutely madhouse film.”

Caught in the middle was Guest, who found himself receiving a steady stream of script suggestions from Kirshner’s New York office, only to have Saltzman ask him to talk Kirshner out of making them. Trying to satisfy two producers who were no longer communicating with each other became part of his daily routine.

Through it all, the youngest members of the cast were simply trying to keep up. Newton-John had never carried a feature film before. Looking back years later, she laughed about the experience. “I was part of a new group, put together for the picture, called Toomorrow—yes, with four o’s—and we were supposed to be the next big musical group,” she recalled, while acting became another matter. “They kept telling me I had to project, so I went through the whole movie shouting.”

It was exactly the sort of self-deprecating observation that became one of Newton-John’s trademarks, but at the time there wasn’t much to laugh about. She was learning how to make a movie while surrounded by seasoned filmmakers, an ambitious producer and a project carrying enormous expectations. 

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Guest, however, never lost confidence in his young leading lady. “I was very taken with Livy,” he later said. “I thought she had everything going for her in this fresh bubbly way.” He believed she was nervous at first, but quickly found her footing in front of the cameras. More importantly, he saw something in the young singer that convinced him she had a future well beyond Toomorrow. “It was quite obvious that Livy was going places.”

As events unfolded, that prediction would prove to be one of the few things about Toomorrow that everyone eventually agreed on.

Behind-the-scenes

If the production was becoming increasingly chaotic behind the scenes, audiences knew none of it as the publicity surrounding Toomorrow continued to promise something extraordinary. Newspapers described the group as the next great pop phenomenon, while the film was promoted as the launchpad for an empire. The dream that Saltzman and Kirshner had sold from the beginning was still very much alive, but the reality was very different.

One of the most uncomfortable moments came when Kirshner wanted Newton-John to appear in a romantic scene that made the young singer deeply uneasy. Guest later recalled that she became so upset she burst into tears. The director backed her, the scene was abandoned and filming moved on, but it was another sign that the production wasn’t nearly as harmonious as audiences imagined.

When Toomorrow finally reached theaters in 1970, it wasn’t the sensation its producers had envisioned. Some critics found it innocuous, even describing it as “clean, harmless light-hearted fun.” Others were far less charitable, with one reviewer suggesting the filmmakers and the band “should have stayed at home and gone their separate ways,” while another concluded that the enormous investment had produced a loser. Yet even reviewers who dismissed the film often found something to like in its young leading lady. Variety, for example, singled out Olivia Newton-John as “particularly promising as a screen potential.” That observation would prove remarkably prophetic.

The film’s biggest problems, however, had little to do with reviews. Money began running out. Guest had agreed not only to direct the picture but also to oversee the editing and music recording, but the payments stopped. When he asked Saltzman what had happened, the producer admitted he simply didn’t have the money. Guest’s lawyer had a blunt response:  “You’d better find it, because the film is opening at the London Pavilion next week.” The money never arrived.

After Toomorrow had been playing for only a short time in London’s West End, Guest sought an injunction over the unpaid fees, bringing the film’s run to an abrupt halt. But it really wasn’t much of a victory in that the movie disappeared from theaters and Guest still wasn’t paid.

For the four young performers who had been told they were about to become international stars, the news was even worse. The grand experiment was over, and, according to Robert Sellers, Saltzman eventually called the members of Toomorrow into his office and told them they were being released from their contracts. The multimedia empire had collapsed before it ever had the chance to begin.

Looking back, Vic Cooper believed the project’s biggest mistake had been trying to launch a movie and a band at the same time. “I don’t regret it,” he said. “We should have made the pop group and Toomorrow separately.”

Olivia Newton-John was equally candid, although her disappointment was tempered by characteristic good humor. “Our film died a death and it was all a bit of a shambles,” she reflected in 1971. “But it was a good experience.” A few years later, she was a little more direct. “Oh, God… What can I say but it was terrible and I was terrible in it? Toomorrow had left scars.” 

But as Toomorrow faded away, Newton-John’s career was just beginning to find its footing. Within months, she was building a solo career that would take off with Bob Dylan’s “If Not for You,” followed by a string of international hits that established her as one of music’s brightest new stars. The movie that had been designed to introduce her to the world had failed. Ironically, it was music—not movies—that finally made her famous. 

Even so, Toomorrow lingered in the back of her mind. “We made a film and it died,” she said years later. “We were eventually dropped and I guess we did some good as a tax write-off for the producers.”

It was classic Olivia Newton-John—honest, self-deprecating and delivered with a smile. But beneath the humor was a genuine disappointment. Looking back after Grease became a worldwide phenomenon, she admitted the experience had shaken her confidence. “It was such a disaster, I was quite nervous about movies.”

When producer Allan Carr approached her about playing Sandy in Grease, Newton-John wasn’t immediately convinced. At 29, she worried she was too old to play a high school student and remained uncertain about making another film at all. It took considerable persuasion before she finally agreed. Obviously the gamble paid off.

Released in 1978, Grease became one of the most successful movie musicals ever made, earning hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide and turning Newton-John and John Travolta into one of Hollywood’s most beloved screen pairings. For millions of fans, it felt like her arrival as a movie star. In reality, it was her second chance.

That’s particularly impressive when you consider it was the first film adaptation of King’s work, arriving before audiences had any sense of the cinematic empire his stories would eventually create. But according to Ian Nathan, author of Stephen King at the Movies, part of what makes Carrie endure is that King built something unusually rich into his very first published novel.

“I think that what captures the imagination with Carrie is that it manages to be two things at once,” he suggests in an exclusive interview with Woman’s World. “I don’t know if King knew consciously that he was doing this, but he’s doing the horror story with the awakening of psychokinetic powers and the confusion that comes with that, the religious mother, the idea of oppression and all those kinds of things; but he’s doing the teen high school story as well.”

“It develops the idea that horror films work best with teens and for teens in the audience,” Nathan continues. “And if you can make it relatable, then teens will get as much out of it as possible. High school is hell. Everybody knows the idea of being the outsider—we all consider ourselves outsiders. It’s a kind of pivotal element of King’s fiction, his study of the outsider. And Carrie is the original one. She gets the chance to be vengeful, to turn on her bullies, to turn on those who’ve been so cruel to her, but also destroys her humanity in the process. So it has such lovely equalities to it. It’s a very relatable story; it’s a great horror story. And it’s a complex look at human nature as well—vengeance and what we desire, the evil within us.”

More than a movie monster

That complexity is what keeps Carrie White (portrayed by Sissy Spacek in the film) from ever becoming just another movie monster. Even at her most terrifying, there’s tragedy in everything she does. Nathan sees that as central to the story’s emotional power.

“She’s looking for a haven and she’s looking for something her mother has never given her. She’s got nowhere to turn. Even at home, she doesn’t get love and affection. She has this cold, brutal mother, a religious zealot. I think in that final moment, she’s trying… ‘Even after all this has been done to me, now, Mommy, will you help me?’ She still doesn’t. King is sort of saying that evil is made by the environment and it’s made by the people around you, and it’s made by your upbringing. In Carrie’s case, she’s been created by this world, and that’s the horror of it. We understand what’s happened to her and we understand how that happens.”

Nathan believes De Palma’s film actually improves on King’s novel by stripping away the book’s more elaborate structure and placing the emotional focus squarely on Carrie herself. “I think it does surpass the novel, and King agrees with this because he’s said it was a young man’s book. If you read the book, it’s heavily influenced by Dracula. It’s almost epistolary. It’s made of police reports and police interviews and newsprint and all these kinds of things. What De Palma does is concentrate it. He strips away all the police reports and all the different elements of the narrative, and De Palma really centralizes the story on Carrie herself.

“He makes the nature of her power more symbolic. In King’s book, there’s a hint that it may be genetic. De Palma just goes fully into the idea that it’s a coming of age. It’s at the point where she becomes a woman—or is on her way to becoming a woman—that the powers emerge. It’s tied up with a very relatable idea. Anyone going into teenage years is not sure who they are themselves anymore. Suddenly your feelings are different and your hormones are raging and you feel discontent in your own body. That incredible transformation you go through is given this extraordinary horror metaphor in Carrie.”

Just as importantly, Carrie gave De Palma the perfect canvas for his visual style. “Once you have a character who’s flamboyant in what they can do with the world through their brain, that gives De Palma license to be who he kind of is. To go with the split screens, to go with the primary colors, the play on the Psycho soundtrack, all the little twists, all the visual elements that make De Palma De Palma. They were great for each other, I think. Carrie really helps De Palma be who he is without breaking the bounds of his film. It brings out the best in him because it holds him in place. Restrictions can help. Rules can help. And I think it’s among some of the best of De Palma’s work because he’s got to obey the rules of this novel.”

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Then there’s Sissy Spacek, whose performance remains the emotional center of the film. Interestingly, she wasn’t remotely what the author originally described on the page. “In King’s world, she’s a plump girl. He calls her a plain pudding, but Sissy Spacek looks different. She’s so thin and frail. She’s like porcelain with that pale skin. She looks like she’s come from the 17th century or something. She comes from Salem. She has that aura about her that helps De Palma sell the idea that she’s a bit weird and alien in this environment.

“I love the idea that the high school and her home are virtually in different genres. The high school is very realistic and certainly to the time. And at home, it could be something from the 16th century. It’s like a Renaissance painting. And she really owned the part from the very beginning.”

What Spacek brought to Carrie went far beyond fragility, Nathan viewing it as a deeper quality. “There’s always more to a victim than we think. There’s more to them, and there is a kind of backbone somewhere underneath it all.”

Lasting impact

The influence of Carrie on horror is difficult to overstate, with Nathan believing that iits DNA can be seen in everything from slasher films to teen horror television. “Without Carrie, do we get the slasher movie? I know you can argue it came from Psycho, but without Carrie, do we get the sense of marrying high school and horror together? There’s now a genre in itself, isn’t there? It completely woke that whole side of how you did horror. Halloween, Friday the 13th, right through to Freddy Krueger and beyond—you can see the ingredients there.”

He also points to the film’s famous final shock—the hand erupting from the grave—as another lasting contribution. “That sting in the tail has become almost part of the language of modern horror. You can’t rest your film at the point where the final girl has won the day, because there’s always something else to add, some extra beat. I think you can probably say that begins with Carrie.”

Even after sequels, remakes and endless reinterpretations, Nathan sees the continued fascination with Carrie as proof of the story’s enduring power. “What it does show you is the cultural resonance that Carrie has had. Everybody gets what that is and it’s really left its impression upon culture.”

The best measure of Carrie’s lasting power may be that half a century later, it still shocks, still resonates and still feels painfully human. Part of what also makes Carrie fascinating in retrospect is where it landed in Brian De Palma’s career.

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By 1976, De Palma was already regarded as one of the rising filmmakers of the New Hollywood generation, but he hadn’t yet had the breakthrough hit that would cement him commercially. Nathan sees Carrie as the film that finally brought together De Palma’s instincts as a visual stylist with material that could connect with a mass audience. “The interesting thing—the joke about De Palma—is that he was the movie brat with the most talent, but the worst taste,” Nathan says with a laugh. “Carrie was so lucky for him because he didn’t always have a nose for the right script.

“He needed a hit,” he elaborates. “He was swerving good scripts to make these kind of crazy films that he made, which may be what makes him him. So in a sense, yeah, Carrie isn’t exactly a New Hollywood film, but it also kind of is. It’s 1976. It’s sort of the end of the era, but it’s still going on. It does things in an unusual way. It doesn’t tackle genre traditionally. Certainly in formal terms, it breaks up the way genre works with all of De Palma’s visual games. It has a heroine who is morally ambiguous. It has the realism with which it depicts the school. That opening sequence—you wouldn’t have seen that in the ’50s or ’60s. That’s a very New Hollywood way of tackling the material.”

As much as Carrie became a major moment for De Palma and a defining performance for Sissy Spacek, there was someone else who perhaps benefited even more. “The person who gained the most from Carrie was Stephen King in commercial terms,” points out Nathan. “He would happily say, ‘Carrie made me.’ He was very grateful to the film and very open about his praise of it. As much as it changed his book and cut things out, he understood what it had done for him. I’m sure he still would’ve become a major writer, but Carrie was the catalyst. Then in quick succession you got Salem’s Lot, The Shining and The Dead Zone, and it all ballooned from that moment.”

Every version of the story

Carrie (1976)

Directed by Brian De Palma, the original adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel remains the definitive version of Carrie. Starring Sissy Spacek as Carrie White and Piper Laurie as her fanatically religious mother, the film balanced psychological tragedy with supernatural horror. Its legendary prom sequence remains one of horror cinema’s most unforgettable moments.

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

Released more than two decades later, The Rage: Carrie 2 served as a sequel set in the same universe as the 1976 film. Starring Emily Bergl, the story followed another troubled teen with telekinetic powers. The film updated the themes of bullying and revenge for the late ’90s, though it never came close to matching the impact of the original.

Carrie (2002)

NBC reimagined Carrie as a television movie starring Angela Bettis in the title role and Julianne Moore— correction: Patricia Clarkson as Margaret White. This version stayed closer to Stephen King’s novel than the 1976 film, restoring many of the book’s details and expanding the story. It was originally intended to launch an ongoing TV series, but that never materialized.

Carrie (2013)

Directed by Kimberly Peirce, this remake starred Chloë Grace Moretz as Carrie and Julianne Moore as Margaret White. The film updated the story for the social media era, incorporating cyberbullying and viral humiliation into Carrie’s tragic descent. While the performances were praised, the film received mixed reviews and struggled to escape comparisons to De Palma’s classic.

The Upcoming TV Series

A new adaptation of Carrie is currently in development as a television series from Mike Flanagan. Known for emotionally rich horror projects like The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, Flanagan is widely seen as an ideal creative fit for Stephen King’s story. The project remains in development, but anticipation is already high.

The Chicago Bears are getting the Hallmark treatment

This week, the Chicago Bears and Hallmark Media announced an exciting partnership: The football team is starring in the channel’s newest NFL-themed Christmas film! The new made-for-TV movie will incorporate beloved Bears traditions, surely sparking smiles among fans of the Midwestern team. 

“After the tremendous success of our first two Holiday Touchdown movies, we knew we wanted to continue the tradition by partnering with another iconic NFL franchise and fan base,” Darren Abbott, president and chief brand officer of Hallmark Media, said in a press release. “The Chicago Bears have a rich history, passionate supporters, and a culture that extends far beyond the football field, making them a perfect fit for a heartwarming holiday story. We can’t wait for audiences to experience this story and celebrate the passion and spirit that bring Bears fans together.”

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Who is starring in the new Hallmark NFL Movie?

At this time, there is still a bit of mystery surrounding the casting for the new holiday movie. But Hallmark fans may be able to get a sneak peek of the stars when production kicks off this summer. 

The movie will film entirely in the Chicago area, and there are plans to feature plenty of well-known locations in the city. It’s also a safe bet that there will be scenes taking place at the real-life Soldier Field! 

If you live in the Windy City or plan on visiting this summer, you may even have a chance to be on screen as an extra. Hallmark has been known to put out casting calls for some of its productions, so keep your eyes out for announcements posted on local news websites and on social media.   

When does ‘Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story’ premiere?

Already excited to watch the newest NFL-themed romance? You won’t have to wait too long! Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story will air during the Hallmark Channel’s 17th annual Countdown to Christmas programming event this December.

Though the movie is confirmed to have a 2026 release, the specific premiere date is not yet set. But here’s some good news: You’ll soon be able to mark your calendars. Hallmark usually reveals its full “Countdown to Christmas” movie schedule in September, which includes details about each of the programs.  

The highly-anticipated announcement means a look at not only the new Holiday Touchdown movie, but all of the other feel-good holiday films you can enjoy this season.  

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A look back at Hallmark’s past NFL Christmas movies

In 2024, Hallmark released Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story during its Christmas lineup—and it was a huge hit! In the cozy romance, a Chiefs mega fan named Alana tries to prove why she and her family deserve the Fan of the Year Award. When she begins spending time with Derrick, the director of fan engagement who is handling the contest, sparks quickly start flying.

The next year, the channel treated viewers to Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story, which has an equally heartwarming plot. In this standalone sequel, lifelong friends Morgan Quinn (a pediatric doctor) and Gabe DeLuca (the Bills’ vice president of stadium development) team up to give their Buffalo Bills-obsessed families a Christmas they will never forget. 

Just like the first two movies, we can expect plenty of Bears fanfare and a dreamy romance this December! 

What’s being called one of the best rom coms in recent years is an emotional story about Jill (Zoey Deutch), an aspiring baker, who is trying to cope with her sister’s death by leaving voicemails to her old phone. But what she doesn’t know is that her sister’s number has already been reassigned to Wes, who begins listening to the messages and eventually falls for Jill. 

When Wes seeks Jill out, the two develop a close relationship and start spending all of their time together. The only problem is that Jill has no idea that Wes is the one listening to her voicemails on the other end of the line. 

The film has received raving reviews from audiences, eliciting thousands of reaction videos on TikTok. The film has made viewers laugh and cry and feel so many other emotions throughout and it’s that feel-good romantic comedy that the world has been craving.

Now, with Voicemails for Isabelle, that ask has been answered. So, if you’ve been looking for something to fill the hole left by the adorable movie, we have a few fun recommendations that will make you feel all the feels. 

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‘Set It Up’

If you’ve been obsessing over Zoey Deutch and her character, Jill, in Voicemails for Isabelle, we have just the recommendation for you. Set It Up (2018) is another feel-good romantic comedy starring Deutch as Harper, an underpaid and under-appreciated assistant. When she meets another fellow emotionally drained assistant in Charlie (Glen Powell), the two of them decide to set up their demanding bosses to get them off their backs. 

What starts as a plot to get their bosses out of the office ends with a blossoming relationship between Harper and Charlie, who spend more and more time together for the mission. But when feelings begin to blur the line between what’s right and wrong, things get a bit messy.

Starring Deutch, Powell, Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs, Set It Up is a must-watch and perfect follow-up to Voicemails for Isabelle. 

Watch Set It Up on Netflix now!

‘You’ve Got Mail’

With several references to the film in Voicemails for Isabelle, the 1998 classic, You’ve Got Mail, is the perfect follow-up to the Netflix film. Starring Meg Ryan as struggling bookseller Kathleen Kelly, You’ve Got Mail follows the anonymous Internet relationship between Kathleen and her Joe Fox, owner of the corporate chain bookstore, Foxbooks, and her business rival. But when they chat online, neither of them knowing the other’s true identity, their feelings for one another grow. 

You’ve Got Mail is an iconic romantic comedy that is already a must-watch, but if you’re looking for something to watch after Voicemails for Isabelle, this Meg Ryan flick is an ideal choice. 

Watch You’ve Got Mail on Prime Video now!

Love Again

This 2023 film follows a very similar story as Voicemails for Isabelle and is just what you need to watch next. Love Again stars Priyanka Chopra as Mira, a woman reeling from the death of her fiancé who tries to cope by sending texts to his phone.

What she doesn’t know is that the number has already been reassigned to journalist Rob Burns, who is moved by her texts. Rob soon enlists the help of Celine Dion, the subject of his next interview, to meet Mira in person and win her heart. 

Watch Love Again on Hulu now!

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Selleck makes us swoon!

In Three Men and a Baby, Selleck’s character of Peter, an accomplished architect, put his typical life on pause to care for Jack’s baby while he was away. Released during his Magnum, P.I. fame, the undeniably handsome actor had us falling for him all over again in this movie.

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A young Ted Danson embraces fatherhood in this flick

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Figuring out the formula

Who knew feeding a baby could be so hard? In this snapshot from the film, Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg navigate baby Mary’s feeding routine.

Selleck looks sweet as can be

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An authentic accident

Three Men and a Baby sure knew how to keep things real! In this photograph used as the film’s poster, the liquid all over Tom Selleck’s clothes just so happened to be real urine. “That’s real pee on me,” Selleck shared during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “Annie Leibovitz took the picture and you know, she’s great. We’re taking this picture for the poster and the baby pees all over me. And she says, ‘Don’t change! Don’t change!,’ and she just keeps taking pictures.”

At the same time, according to author and literary and pop culture historian Douglas E. Winter, those books reveal something important about the character: the more writers tried to expand the world of the Man with No Name (also known as the Stranger), the clearer it became why the character had connected with audiences in the first place.

“First, this was a new kind of Western hero in that he wasn’t really a hero, he was an anti-hero,” Winter explains. “The closest thing possibly to him would’ve been Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks. But the Eastwood character was this consummate anti-hero in the sense that, as Eastwood said, ‘We made a different kind of Western. The good guy fired first.'”

“They call him Man With No Name, but in reality, he has no past, and he really, in a certain sense, has no future,” adds Winter. “He just arrives and deals with situations that have their own sense of darkness and evil to them; he works his way through those things and survives. He’s not really a good guy; he’s a mystery and an enigma. Authority means nothing. He’s a character unlike anything audiences had seen before. He’s the same in each movie and there’s no character arc as there might be in traditional dramatic films. Instead, there’s just this existence in a violent world that’s filled with chaos and he’s making his own way through it. He wasn’t perfect: he lies, he cheats, he shoots first. He’s several things that we’ve been taught to identify with someone who’s not the good guy. But at the same time, he’s not the bad guy. There are worse people.”

Why Clint Eastwood wasn’t Sergio Leone’s first choice

Given the reputation of the films and Eastwood’s emergence from them, it may be surprising to know that he wasn’t Leone’s first choice. At the time, Eastwood was still best known for playing Rowdy Yates on the Western television series Rawhide, a role that had made him recognizable, but hardly a movie star.

“I think what Leone saw in Eastwood was what we’ve seen from Eastwood in so many movies since, this kind of iconic look, this stoicism,” Winter muses. “He looked the part and the part had to be someone who was somewhat bereft of emotion, who was walking through this West that Leone imagined with a certain amount of strength of character, but who was his own person.”

The result was one of the most unusual success stories in movie history. “These films made Clint Eastwood into an international superstar without him starring in one American motion picture prior to them. He’d appeared in a few, but he had never been the lead, so this is a very rare thing, particularly for an American.”

The timing made Eastwood’s rise even stranger. A Fistful of Dollars was heavily inspired by director Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai film Yojimbo—though some would say “inspired” was too lax a word. “Fistful was filmed in 1964 and released in Europe in 1964,” Winter explains, “but because of the copyright infringement allegations with Yojimbo, it was held up and was not released in the United States until 1967. By that point in time, all three films were done.”

When United Artists finally released the trilogy in America, the response was immediate. “The films were huge,” says Winter. “And then they just sort of entered film history. They were the archetypal Italian westerns.”

Yet even as the trilogy was turning Eastwood into a star, he was already looking ahead. “The combination of reaching the end of this trilogy that Leone had created, and of having played that same character three times, and his own desire to make things big in the United States led Eastwood to really focus on roles here,” Winter says. “And his time with Leone was done.”

That doesn’t mean he left the Stranger behind, particularly when one considers that 1971’s Dirty Harry, starring Eastwood as Detective Harry Callahan, often felt like the Man with No Name transported into modern-day San Francisco. “It really helped make that second character, because so much of it was similar. The audiences immediately transported the character he built in the Westerns into this character and he certainly didn’t do anything to try to dispute that.”

The lost ‘Man with No Name’ paperback novels

The popularity of the Dollars films naturally led publishers to wonder whether the Man with No Name could succeed beyond the movie screen. In the late 1960s, that wasn’t an unusual idea. “At that time, paperback novelizations and movie tie-ins were a major enterprise,” explains Winter. “United Artists quite rightly commissioned novelizations of the films and then what you could call supposedly original novelizations that weren’t based on the films themselves, but were based on the character. The notion of continuing on with the character was completely in line with what the publishing industry was doing at the time when it was coming to publishing conventional Westerns.”

The original run consisted of the three film novelizations followed by five original adventures. The film tie-ins were Frank Chandler’s A Fistful of Dollars (1965) and Joe Millard’s For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967). A look at the original novels follows. 

‘A Dollar to Die For’ by Brian Fox (1967)

The Man with No Name’s mission to deliver outlaw Pinky Roebuck for a reward leads him into a dangerous hunt for hidden gold involving Mexican soldiers, Apache warriors and the unpredictable bandit Tuco Ramírez. After a series of shifting alliances and double-crosses, the Stranger succeeds in collecting his bounties before once again disappearing down the trail.

‘A Coffin Full of Dollars’ by Joe Millard (1971)

The character joins a traveling circus after rescuing its performers from a gang of outlaws. His journey soon pits him against rival bounty hunters, ruthless bandits and thieves pursuing a fortune hidden in a coffin. Amid double-crosses, shootouts and a race for stolen money, the Stranger finds himself caught in one of the most unusual adventures of his wandering career.

‘The Devil’s Dollar Sign’ by Joe Millard (1972)

The Man with No Name joins a frantic race to locate a legendary treasure hidden in Dollar Sign Canyon. Battling hostile Apaches, crooked officials, murderous outlaws and a fanatical preacher, the Stranger must rely on his wits and his gun to survive a deadly quest for gold in one of the West’s most unforgiving landscapes.

‘Blood For a Dirty Dollar’ by Joe Millard (1973)

The anti-hero is caught in a violent struggle involving murder, betrayal and revenge. As he tracks dangerous criminals across the frontier, the Stranger becomes entangled in a web of shifting loyalties where nearly everyone has a price and justice can be as elusive as the outlaws he’s pursuing. Faced with ruthless enemies and competing bounty hunters, he must decide who can be trusted—and who deserves a bullet.

‘The Million-Dollar Bloodhunt’ by Joe Millard (1973)

In his final adventure, the Man with No Name teams with an unlikely group of treasure hunters as they pursue the escaped killer Pachuco across the desert. While the Stranger is motivated by the enormous bounty on the outlaw’s head, his companions are more interested in a hidden cache of stolen gold reportedly worth a million dollars. As the chase intensifies, greed, betrayal and shifting alliances prove just as dangerous as the ruthless fugitive they’re tracking.

 Why the book sequels failed to match the movies

The problem with the book series, Winter argues, was that the Man with No Name wasn’t like most Western heroes. “The issue for anyone novelizing the Leone films is that they are based significantly on visual and audio, where the narrative is oftentimes less important to the film-going experience than the vision and the sound. Leone was a very stylized filmmaker. He was intent on showing certain things; he’d move to these extreme closeups. He’d move to these extremely wide shots. The staging of where people were standing in any given scene was very important to him. It was also very important to the impact that his films would have.”

“His integration with music and his relationship with composer Ennio Morricone was very important because the music played such a significant role in the films. None of that can really be conveyed in black and white on a printed page. And then there was the Stranger himself. He has no past and wisely, Millard didn’t try to delve into things like internal dialogue or motivation or explanation. That’s because the mystery surrounding the character was one of his greatest strengths. He’s a man of very few words. When he does speak, it’s very brief and to the point. So to a certain extent, you’re hamstrung from the beginning. A good, thoughtful writer who was attuned to what Leone was trying to do and was doing could use the written word to convey something similar. Joe Millard was a talented writer and he certainly brought his talents to those books. As books, they’re fine entertainment.”

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The larger problem, in Winter’s view, was that the novels gradually moved away from what made the films unique. “He wrote the books as if they were conventional Westerns. In other words, he didn’t try to take the Italian style, the Italian influence, the Italian perspective on the American western and bring it to the books.” 

By the end of the series, the mysterious drifter who had wandered into Leone’s dusty frontier had become something much more familiar. “Everyone knows who he is. He’s this feared gunman throughout the West who’s known for his costume, just like a superhero,” Winter says. “But he’s also just a good guy.”

For him, that transformation gets to the heart of the challenge. “An anti-hero can only right so many wrongs before they’re no longer anti, and they’re simply a hero.”