A Central New York couple is behind a new Lifetime Christmas movie starring Reba McEntire and John Schneider.
Juliet and Keith Giglio, a married screenwriting duo in Manlius, N.Y., wrote “Reba McEntire’s Christmas in Tune,” which will premiere Friday, Nov. 26, the day after Thanksgiving, at 8 p.m. ET.
McEntire, a country singer whose acting credits include TV’s “Reba” and the movie “Tremors,” and Schneider, of “Dukes of Hazzard” and “Smallville” fame, will play a singing duo years after their personal and professional breakup. They agree to reunite when their daughter (”The Vampire Diaries” actress Candice King) asks them to participate in a holiday charity concert.
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“‘Christmas In Tune‘ is a really cute story about a man and a woman who were a duo singing partner and also married,” McEntire said. “The lady is more of the singer, but the man is more the writer, but they make a good duo. And so, things went a little south and they have a beautiful daughter and things went south so they went their separate ways, and the daughter gets them back together for a military benefit at Christmas. And of course, neither one could turn her down.”
Reba McEntire appears in a scene from "Christmas in Tune," a new Lifetime Christmas movie written by Central New York couple Juliet and Keith Giglio.
It’s the latest film from the Giglios, who also had Lifetime’s prime TV slot on the Friday after Thanksgiving last year with “Dear Christmas,” starring Melissa Joan Hart and Jason Priestley. The pair previously wrote two other Lifetime holiday movies — “A Very Nutty Christmas” (2018) and “Christmas Reservations” (2019) — which both also starred Hart of “Clarissa Explains It All” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” fame.
“It’s a real romance for us. It’s really about the wonderful things that can happen at Christmas,” Juliet Giglio said of writing with Keith, her husband of more than 30 years.
“Christmas in Tune” is the fourth movie they’ve written together since moving from Los Angeles to Syracuse a decade ago. Their credits include “Joshua,” “Noah,” “Return to Halloweentown,” “Tarzan” and “Pizza My Heart”; Keith Giglio also worked on Disney’s “A Cinderella Story” and “Another Cinderella Story.”
The Giglios moved to CNY to teach screenwriting; he’s a professor at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, and Juliet does the same at SUNY Oswego. They wrote a book together, “Proof of Concept: Writing the Short Script,” which is used in classrooms across the country.
“Reba McEntire’s Christmas in Tune” premieres Friday, Nov. 26, at 8 p.m. on the Lifetime network (stream with Philo, Hulu + Live TV or Sling). See the trailer at mylifetime.com.