Jodie Sweetin is expressing disappointment that her upcoming film Craft Me a Romance will air on Great American Family, where her former Full House co-star Candace Cameron Bure has a deal.
In a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter, Sweetin said she was not aware that the rom-com would land at the cable channel, which was the subject of headlines late last year when Cameron Bure said that “traditional marriage” would be the focus of stories featured on Great American Family. This was in contrast to the Hallmark Channel, the previous home for Cameron Bure’s numerous Christmas rom-coms, having recently featured LGBTQ characters in its movies.
“Sometimes, we, as actors, don’t have control over which network buys the projects we are in nor are we a part of the process in which they get sold,” Sweetin said. “So I was very surprised to learn by reading about it in the press yesterday that the independent film I worked on over a year ago was sold to Great American Family.”
She continued, “I am disappointed, but in keeping with my mission of supporting the LGBTQ+ family, any potential or future money made from this sale will be donated to LGBTQ+ organizations.”
THR has reached out to Great American Family for comment.
During an interview with The Wall Street Journal that was published in November, Cameron Bure said, “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.” She added, “I knew that the people behind Great American Family were Christians that love the Lord and wanted to promote faith programming and good family entertainment.”
Cameron Bure announced her move to the channel’s parent company, Great American Media, in April 2022 after working with Hallmark for over a decade. She explained that the deal — which includes an executive role with Great American — was motivated by the fact that she and the company “share a vision of creating compelling wholesome content for an audience who wants to watch programming for and with the whole family.”
Great American Family announced this week that Craft Me a Romance is set to air Sept. 16. The film stars Sweetin as the owner of an arts and crafts store who learns that the head of a competing company is demanding that she sell her business or risk getting shut down.
Sweetin is known for playing Stephanie Tanner on Full House, and Cameron Bure portrayed Stephanie’s older sister, D.J. Tanner. Both became child stars due to the ABC sitcom’s success, and they reprised their roles on the Netflix revival series Fuller House, which ended its run in 2020.
In December, Hallmark Channel aired The Holiday Sitter, its first holiday rom-com centering on LGBTQ characters. Jonathan Bennett and George Krissa played the central couple.
During an interview with THR that published last month, Luke Macfarlane, an openly gay actor who has starred in multiple romantic features for Hallmark Channel, was asked about Cameron Bure’s comments. This led him to praise Hallmark’s diversity strides.
“Hallmark is absolutely making efforts to create queer content, and I applaud them for that,” Macfarlane said. “They’ve been often the butt of jokes about the sort of limited nature of their cast, but they’ve really changed that, and they’re really continuing to do that.”
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