Holiday rom-coms just keep getting gayer and gayer—and there’s nothing IRL Grinch Candace Cameron Bure can do about it!
In the grand tradition of Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel, cheesy, made-for-TV Christmas movies have only gotten more popular in recent years. And, as the holiday sub-genre continues to grow, we’ve seen more that put a focus on LGBTQ+ relationships.
From Hulu’s star-studded Happiest Season to Netflix’s legit hilarious Single All The Way to the many titles starring our “Gay King Of Christmas” Jonathan Bennett, these movies really are making the yuletide extra gay.
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But now even the straight holiday rom-coms are beginning to realize the benefit of catering to queer audiences. Case in point: Netflix’s upcoming The Merry Gentlemen, which shared first-look images that just so happen to feature forever-crush Chad Michael Murray looking hotter than ever:
The pecs, the pits, the chiseled abs—the Cabaret suspenders and bowler!—the gays have been drooling over these pics since they dropped. Yeah, that marketing team knows exactly what they’re doing.
Now, you might be wondering: what kind of Christmas movie features a bunch of shirtless male dancers? And to that we say: Why can’t they all?
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But, to actually answer your question, People has an exclusive first look at The Merry Gentlemen—starring Murray & Britt Robertson—which aims to “push the envelope a little bit” in terms of what we think of typical holiday fare.
The set-up is almost comically familiar: A big-city hot shot (Robertson) returns to her quaint hometown, only to find that the beloved music venue her parents own is in danger of going under, so she hatches a plan with an old flame (Murray) to save the business. And save Christmas, of course!
Oh yeah, and that plan happens to involve strippers! Murray’s character—and a number of other local hunks—will put on a jingle-bell-rockin’ all-male revue in a last-ditch effort to raise money for the venue.
In other words, it’s Magic Mike meets… well, pretty much every holiday movie that’s ever aired on Lifetime.
While the central relationship of The Merry Gentlemen might be straight, the cast does include at least one queer supporting player in School Of Rock‘s Rivkah Reyes. And there’s plenty of eye candy to go around for the girls and gays alike, with jacked actors like Cole Prattes & Marc Anthony Samuel playing fellow dancers.
Which brings us back to the real ace up this movie’s sleeve: Chad Michael Murray.
In the early 2000s, the model-turned-actor emerged as one of the ultimate heartthrobs of the era. Some of his earliest work was on the WB (the network now known as The CW), recurring in hit series like The Gilmore Girls and Dawson’s Creek, which gave way to playing the love interest in movies opposite It Girls like Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday) and Hillary Duff (A Cinderella Story).
However, to many, he’ll always be known as Lucas Scott, the sensitive jock at the heart of popular teen melodrama One Tree Hill. We challenge you to find a millennial gay who doesn’t have the scene where Murray’s Lucas walked through the halls of his school sans any clothing—with nothing to cover up but two basketballs—permanently etched in their memory.
That was over 20 years ago… and this is Murray now, aging like a fine wine. And we do mean fine.
“As we get older, it’s not as easy as it used to be when we were in our 20s, so it was a lot of work, dedication and focus,” he tells People of his training regimen for the movie. “We were doing six-hour days in the dance hall. I got there before all the other guys so that I could learn the majority of all the things before they got there, because some of the guys have previous dance training. I wanted to be ahead of the curve so that I wasn’t holding anybody back. If I was going to do this, I wanted to be all in.”
The Merry Gentlemen isn’t Murray’s first holiday rom-com rodeo. He’s been in quite a few over the years, dating back to Freeform’s Christmas Cupid in 2010 and then A Madea Christmas in 2013. Of late, he’s been a regular on The Hallmark Channel and even (unfortunately) Candace Cameron Bure’s favorite network, Great American Family.
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But now’s his turn to give back to the gays who have been supporting and thirsting after him since the turn-of-the-millennium with what just might end up being the horniest holiday movie ever made.
The Merry Gentlemen streams on Netflix beginning November 20, and you better believe we’ll be sitting in front of our TVs ready to stuff our stockings watch when it arrives. Check out a few more of our favorite reactions to “Magic Murray” below:
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