I like to stay current on the most exciting book-to-screen adaptations in the works, but in the case of Guarding Stars, there's a big reason the trailer release for this new holiday rom-com starring Leighton Meester and Jared Padalecki sneaked right by me: The title is not the same as the book. Well, that, and the upcoming 2026 movie is a Christmas film, but I'll get to that in a minute.
First, if you haven't seen the trailer for Guarding Stars, you can check it out below. If the story looks familiar (beyond the fact that it's exercising more than one tried-and-true romantic trope), you might have also read Katherine Center's The Bodyguard. The 2022 novel is the source material for this charming and exciting-looking rom-com, which will be streaming for those of us with a Netflix subscription in November.
As a fan of Center's book, I'm very excited for Guarding Stars. And I get why Netflix's adaptation would want to retitle the story for the movie adaptation. There is, after all, a very popular romantic film called The Bodyguard already. In the case of Center's story, and this upcoming Netflix movie, however, rather than a Kevin Costner-esque bodyguard hired to look out for the mega-beautiful, mega-famous celeb, Leighton Meester's character plays the protector role, while Jared Padalecki plays the body that needs guarding.
Also like the book, Guarding Stars leans into the comedy as much as it does the romance, based on glimpses we get from the trailer. We're introduced to Hannah (Leighton Meester) as the serious woman who proves her capabilities with a demonstration of her strength and reflexes for and on her newest client, Jared Padalecki's Jack.
Hannah is tasked with watching his back while he visits his family, and oh right, they're fake-dating. In the book, that's set up because Jack doesn't want his family to know he needs a bodyguard to protect him from a stalker. I'm going to assume the same (or something similar) is going on here, as we see Hannah introduced to Jack's parents as his girlfriend.
Unlike the book, however, Guarding Stars seems very much centered around the holidays. I had to grab my copy of the book to check to see if that was the case in The Bodyguard because, while it's been a few years since I read it, I don't remember the original story having anything to do with the holidays. I'm not complaining about the change, however.
Based on the trailer, the story really does seem to fit right in with the cozy, snowy backdrop and warm holiday cheer. In the case of the book, Jack is returning home to spend time with his family after his mother has surgery following a breast cancer diagnosis. I wonder if that'll still factor into the story here, or if the reason behind Jack's homecoming is solely holiday-related. Either way, I love seeing Andie MacDowell in the role as Jack's mom.
Finally, the trailer also has me excited to get to see Leighton Meester in literal action. While the clip showed plenty of romantic chemistry between Meester and Padalecki's characters, we also get to see Hannah doing her job to keep him safe. That's one of my favorite aspects of the book, and I absolutely can't wait to see it on the screen next month.
I really enjoyed Center's novel (it was the first of her books that I'd read, and wasn't the last!), and I love that the adaptation is coming to Netflix in a matter of weeks. The streamer has it lined up to arrive on the schedule on November 18th, which is just in time for the holiday season.
