Last Christmas, the upcoming holiday romcom starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding and directed by Paul Feig, is beginning to sound like it was designed in a lab to make me come see it. The latest detail from the movie’s rollout is that, along with extremely good-looking people and hijinks and seasonal cheer, it will also include previously unreleased George Michael music.
A representative of Michael’s confirmed the news to The Guardian. Bryony Kimmings, the artist who co-wrote the screenplay with Emma Thompson (you’ll remember she starred in another little holiday-centric romcom based in London), has said that the late singer was onboard with the movie when she started working on it. “George was up for it,” she said. He’d already signed something to say yes.”
Exactly how the movie relates to the song or to Michael’s legacy is still unclear; few details about the plot have been released, although Variety has reported that Clarke’s character Kate “harumphs around London” and works at as an elf at a holiday shop, and Golding’s character Tom “walks into her life” and seems “too good to be true.” (Does that sound suspiciously like Will Ferrell’s Elf to you?)
Kimmings also previously said there would be queer elements to the story, a possibility that seems long gone now that the leads have been announced. “[When] I wrote my draft, I tried to slip in some trans people and make sure there was queer politics in there,” said Kimmings. “I don’t know how much of that remains!”