Hallmark Channel has announced it has begun production on its original film SMOOCH, an updated and loosely-bases homage to the Brothers Grimm short story “The Frog Prince,” in which a prince is turned into a frog by a witch’s curse and will remain a frog until he can convince a princess to take him home and treat him like a king. Smooch is intended to premiere around Valentine’s Day 2011.
In Smooch, two-time SAG award winner Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men’s Sally Draper) plays Zoe, a young girl obsessed by fairytales and happy endings who is searching for the perfect man for her widowed mother Gwen , played by Kellie Martin (Life Goes On, Mystery Woman). Zoe’s belief in a frog’s potential charm compels her to abduct one from her middle school science class, carrying him to the San Francisco Bay in a water-filled lunchbox where she intends to set him free.
Having skipped class, Zoe is surprised to see another schoolmate at the Wharf, and in her anxiety, she accidentally drops her green friend overboard. As she surveys the scene, a male monarch (Simon Kassianides) in full royal regalia emerges from a dinghy in which he fell after a wild night of partying. The dazed prince looks more like Humpty Dumpty, sporting a giant goose egg on his head, courtesy of his fall from the pier. Though the prince has little memory of who he is or how he got into such a predicament, he is in luck. Zoe knows precisely how this fairytale ends.
Production on Smooch began in Detroit on October 23. Look for it to premiere on Hallmark Channel in February, 2011.
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