'One Tree Hill' cast reunion in Lifetime's 'A Christmas Wish' is the best gift the show's fans could have asked for this holiday season
Somebody call Lucas Scott because Peyton Sawyer is kissing Chris Keller in a newly leaked photo from the fictional universe of a new Lifetime movie, called 'A Christmas Wish'.
But before all Tree Hill dwellers can gasp and shun this abomination of a development, here's the bigger news: returning with Peyton and everybody's favorite bad boy rockstar from Tree Hill is also our beloved sports commentator Mouth, his and Luke's best friend Skills, and his controversial ladylove, Deb, is returning too. And while they are putting on the robes of absolutely new characters for the Christmas movie, 'A Christmas Wish', might just be the 'One Tree Hill' reunion to watch out for!
For those absolutely clueless about the eponymous Tree Hill and its extremely attractive inhabitants and their insanely complex lives, 'One Tree Hill' was teen-drama that ran successfully for almost a decade in the early 2000s, first on WB, and later on The CW. One of the most popular main characters of the show was Peyton Sawyer, played by Hilarie Burton, who is playing the lead role of Faith in the upcoming film, 'A Christmas Wish'. But alongside Burton, several other stars from the drama are also reuniting to play major roles in the Lifetime movie, like Tyler Hilton, who plays Burton's romantic interest on 'A Christmas Wish'.
Back in 'One Tree Hill', Hilton played the role of Chris, a typical bad boy trying to steal people's women after charming them with his music. In the Tree Hill universe, Peyton's husband Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) would have smashed Chris' face for even hovering around his girl, after almost ruining his best friend Haley's marriage to his half-brother, Nathan. But in 'A Christmas Wish', Lucas doesn't exist, of course, so he can't do much when Burton's Faith decides to experience true love for the first time and is granted her titular wish the very next morning.
The Lifetime film's plot navigates Faith's journey of figuring out whether she is actually in love with the newly granted wish, Andrew, or if her one true love is actually her best friend, Wyatt (Hilton), who has secretly been in love with her for years. And even though like most Christmas stories, Faith will end up with Wyatt, of course, the plot is made even more exciting for Tree Hill fans because we finally get to meet the adorable, and kindhearted 'Mouth' once again as Lee Norris is in the cast of 'A Christmas Wish' too.
And of course, there's also the prospect of seeing Skills, aka Antwon Tanner, and Deb (Barbara Alyn Woods) sharing screen space again after they tantalized the teen rom-com genre with their scandalous older woman having an affair with her son's classmate plot in One Tree Hill. Sweet as their romance was, it was pretty scarring for the teen crowd investing their time and tears in The CW show. But in a very offbeat addition to the cast of 'A Christmas Wish', the reunion will be rounded off by Colin Fickes, who played the role of a school shooting student, responsible for one of the most tragic and momentous curving points of 'One Tree Hill'.
So it's a bit of everyone from every sphere of 'One Tree Hill' bunched together in this lighthearted and cheerful world of 'A Christmas Wish', and honestly, after the tragedy the characters went through on the show, it would be nice to see them around some festive cheer. Not even the fictional school shooter can dampen fan's excitement over the plot, which if you ask Burton, was quite 'empowering' a journey, to begin with.
"I think everyone knows now that some stuff went down on One Tree Hill that wasn’t cool," Burton told Hollywood Life about the reunion film, adding: "and so to take the narrative back and to say, ‘Hey, we are going to work together and it’s going to be on our terms. And we’re going to make stuff that feels nice and is good for the whole family and is good for women.’ That’s a really empowering feeling.”
While Burton does admit "It’s going to be nostalgic for our fan base, but it’s also going to be new and fun and lighthearted. You can tell that we’re having a good time," it is also worth noting that both she and Hilton were the driving forces behind the multiple 'One Tree Hill' actors being part of 'A Christmas Wish'.
“We seriously just sit on our phone and go through and see like who is up for it,” Burton told Hollywood Life. Hilton elaborated to the outlet, sharing: “At one point, there was a part that still hadn’t been cast. She and I were just sitting in our cast chairs just texting actors we knew and saying like, ‘Hey! You want to come out to Louisiana next week and just be in this movie?'” Luckily for us fans, "What’s nice is that everybody wanted to do it. It just became a matter of like, ‘Oh, I’m shooting this other thing," as assured by Burton.
'A Christmas Wish' dropped right in time for Thanksgiving cheer, on November 28, only on Lifetime.