MEDINA, Ohio — Christmas is arriving early for Northeast Ohio movie fans. Two holiday films shot in Medina and other Northeast Ohio locations last winter now have release dates, the Akron Beacon Journal reported on Monday, Nov. 9 — one of them begins streaming this week.
The first film, “The Great Chocolate Date,” begins streaming on Plex on Tuesday, Nov. 10, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. Directed by Lindsay Hartley, the movie follows an overworked chiropractor who receives a decadent gift of chocolate and sets out to find the sender with the help of a local chocolatier — discovering, in the telling, some magic and love along the way.
The film stars Harley Bronwyn and Ignacyo Matynia, and it used locations around Medina’s historic square along with the interior of Castle Noel, the year-round Christmas museum that has become one of the city’s best-known attractions. Matynia appears as the romantic interest in both of the newly dated films, the Beacon Journal reported.
Castle Noel owner Mark Klaus told the Akron Beacon Journal that some set pieces from the production, including a large chocolate globe, are now part of the museum’s large collection of movie props. “We are super excited,” he told the Akron Beacon Journal.
The release will also mark a small milestone for the museum’s owners. It will be the first time Mark Klaus and his wife, Dana, have appeared in a movie, according to the Beacon Journal. The couple have made several appearances on national television talking about the popular Christmas museum, but a film credit is a first.
The second film, “Love on the Christmas List,” is set to air at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, on Lifetime. It stars Jana Kramer and Ignacyo Matynia and follows an ambitious assistant hunting for a sought-after toy who instead encounters a widowed father looking for the same gift, the Beacon Journal reported.
Like “The Great Chocolate Date,” “Love on the Christmas List” also filmed inside Castle Noel and at other spots in Northeast Ohio. Together, the two productions gave Medina’s square and the museum a turn as a holiday-movie backdrop — the kind of small-town Christmas setting the genre returns to again and again.
For Medina businesses and residents, productions like these carry a quiet benefit beyond the novelty of a film crew in town. Every viewer who watches a Medina street stand in for the perfect Christmas town is seeing the real square, the real museum and a real Northeast Ohio community — publicity no advertising buy can quite replicate.
The timing adds to a busy late-year stretch for Northeast Ohio audiences and attractions. Readers following other recent Northeast Ohio coverage can revisit gas prices falling below $4 in Akron and Cleveland and Akron Children’s opening a pediatric clinic inside Cleveland’s Broadway Club.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: “The Great Chocolate Date” streams on Plex starting Tuesday, Nov. 10, and “Love on the Christmas List” airs at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, on Lifetime, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. Both films shot at Castle Noel and around Medina last winter, and both feature Ignacyo Matynia. What we’re still waiting on: whether either production returns to Northeast Ohio for future filming, and whether Castle Noel adds the new props and appearances to its regular tours.
What happens next is simple for viewers: the first film arrives this week, in time for early holiday viewing, and the second lands on Lifetime five days before Christmas week begins. For Medina, the releases close the loop on last winter’s filming — the cameras have long since left, and now the finished movies are headed to living rooms well beyond Medina County.