Whoopi Goldberg and Garth Brooks Pair for Call Me Claus on TNT
Thursday, January 18, 2001. Turner Network Television
Press Release

Columbia TriStar Televison Will Release Home Video Nine Days After Film's Premiere

ATLANTA, Jan. 16 -- Academy Award-winning actor Whoopi Goldberg will star in and Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Garth Brooks will contribute Christmas songs to the upcoming Turner Network Television (TNT) Original film CALL ME CLAUS, a heartwarming comedy about the true meaning of Christmas, it was announced today by Julie Weitz, executive vice president of original programming, TNT, and Helen Verno, executive vice president of movies & miniseries for Columbia TriStar Television.

Goldberg and Brooks will also executive-produce CALL ME CLAUS, along with Lisa Sanderson, CEO of Brooks' Red Strokes Entertainment. The two-hour film will be a Columbia TriStar Television production, in association with Red Strokes Entertainment and Goldberg's One Ho Productions. Goldberg's producing partner, Tom Leonardis, and Jay Benson will produce. Peter Werner (The 70s, Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story) will direct, from a script by Brian Bird (Bopha!). Academy Award-nominated actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George), Tony Award-winning actor Brian Stokes Mitchell (Broadway's Ragtime and Kiss Me Kate) and Victor Garber (Titanic) will also star.

In a unique arrangement, Columbia Tri Star Television will release the home video of CALL ME CLAUS nine days after the TNT December 2001 Premiere. The video will be in stores in time for Christmas 2001.

``We are thrilled to be making this movie with Whoopi, Lisa, Garth and our partners at Columbia TriStar Television,'' said Weitz. ``CALL ME CLAUS is a funny, touching film full of the holiday spirit, all of which makes it a welcome addition to TNT's Original movie line-up.''

``Everyone at Columbia TriStar is delighted to be making a Christmas perennial with two of the most popular entertainers in the world,'' said Verno. ``It is our first movie with our partners at TNT and we could not be having a more auspicious beginning.''

In the film, Goldberg will play Lucy Cullins, a successful but cranky producer at a home shopping network. When Lucy hires an actor named Nick to play Santa Claus on the network, she gets more than she bargained for. Nick really is Santa Claus, and he faces mandatory retirement after 200 years on the job. Nick must find his replacement by Christmas Eve -- or the world will face dire consequences -- and he has his sights set on Lucy.

Garth Brooks' Red Strokes Entertainment was founded in 1993 to create all forms of entertainment for film and television. Red Strokes Entertainment has several projects in various stages of development and pre-production with companies including Warner Bros. and Showtime. For Paramount Pictures, they will produce The Lamb, a film written by Jeb Stuart (Die Hard, The Fugitive), which Sanderson and Brooks will produce along with Tracey Edmonds. Kenneth ``Babyface'' Edmonds will serve as executive producer on this film about a rock star who is worth more dead than alive.

Goldberg is executive producer and appears in the center square on the Emmy Award-winning Hollywood Squares. Her One Ho Productions also executive produces the Lifetime series, Strong Medicine. She has also produced -- along with Barbra Streisand, Cis Corman, Craig Zadan and Neil Maron -- the upcoming Lifetime original movie, What Makes a Family, starring Brooke Shields and Cherry Jones, as well as Ruby's Bucket of Blood, starring Angela Bassett, for Showtime. Her producing credits also include the feature films The Piano Man's Daughter and The Mao Game and the forthcoming Broadway musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie.

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