There are a lot of things I love about Christmas movies — the festive beverages, the male strippers (you know the one), and the nostalgia of seeing actors from my favorite shows of past decades show up to star in them. There’s plenty of that on the 2025 Christmas movie schedule, and it looks like we have something to look forward to next year, because Gilmore Girls star Jared Padalecki and Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester just signed on for a Christmas movie to hit the Netflix schedule, presumably in 2026.
This year’s Hallmark calendar may feature Aaron Samuels, Superman and Sue Heck coming together for the super cute A Keller Family Christmas, but Millennials everywhere will be counting the sleeps until next Christmas when the book-to-screen adaptation of Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard comes to Netflix. Leighton Meester and Jared Padalecki made the announcement on Thursday with the help of the author:
OK, my young adulthood was spent obsessing over Blair Waldorf and those iconic Gossip Girl outfits, as well as going through relationship ups and downs with Rory and her first boyfriend Dean Forester on Gilmore Girls, so this news definitely has my blood pumping.
The Bodyguard, published in 2022, is centered around a “no-nonsense bodyguard” (Meester) who is assigned to protect “a charming action star” (Padalecki) over the holidays, per THR. Sparks will fly, things will get complicated, and while I have not yet read Katherine Center’s book, I think we all know how these things tend to go.
Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum is set to direct, and if that name sounds familiar, you might remember the way she emotionally wrecked viewers with her Purple Hearts adaptation back in 2022.
Hopefully no such wreckage is on the agenda this time around, though we already know some changes will be made to the source material. For one thing, the novel is not set around Christmas, whereas the Netflix film will be. Secondly, the movie can obviously not be called The Bodyguard, given that Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner laid claim to that title back in 1992, and it’s kind of well-known.
Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum expressed excitement for the project and for the actors who have signed on, saying in a statement:
Leighton Meester and Jared Padalecki are perfect as our leads, and I know audiences are going to love seeing them on screen together.
I, for one, am pretty excited about it. Leighton Meester has already given fans an A+ reunion, as she shared the screen with her real-life husband Adam Brody in Nobody Wants This Season 2. Fans couldn’t get enough of Blair Waldorf and Seth Cohen together, and this upcoming Christmas movie should provide a lot of that same nostalgia.
Jared Padalecki, for his part, not only recently reunited with Gilmore Girls co-star Matt Czuchry (sans Milo Ventimiglia), but he’ll also appear on The Boys Season 5 alongside his former Supernatural co-stars Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins.
As Millennials, we love to see that kind of thing, and I’m just glad there’s plenty to look forward to as we wait for this fun Netflix movie to come out next Christmas. Stay tuned for updates, including other cast members and what title is chosen for the adaptation.
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