‘Candy Cane Lane’ is a comedy adventure for the family, filled with holiday cheers, hilarious hijinks, and the importance of communicating and working together as a family. What starts off as a friendly neighborhood Christmas decorating contest quickly turns into chaos as Chris Carver crosses paths with a mischievous elf with a naughty agenda.
The movie stars Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross, and is directed by Reginald Hudlin (‘Boomerang’), ‘Candy Can Lane’ premieres on Prime Video and in select theaters in Los Angeles and New York on December 1, 2023.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of attending the virtual global press conference for ‘Candy Cane Lane.’ In attendance were director Reginald Hudlin, Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell, Chris Redd, Robin Thede, D.C. Young Fly, Thaddeus J. Mixson, Genneya Walton, Madison Thomas, and screenwriter Kelly Younger.
Here are 9 things we learned from the ‘Candy Cane Lane’ virtual press conference:
1. ‘Candy Cane Lane’ is Eddie Murphy’s first Christmas movie, technically
Yes, this movie is technically Eddie Murphy’s first Christmas movie. While the actor’s expansive filmography includes titles such as ‘Coming To America’ and ‘Trading Places,’ in which both movies take place during the holiday season, ‘Candy Cane Lane’ fully embraces everything surrounding the holiday and its themes.
When asked what it is about this Christmas movie that he loves so much, Murphy said:
Eddie Murphy: I thought that script was unique, and I thought that it had all the elements that you’re supposed to have in a Christmas movie where you could watch it over and over again. I know the movies that I watched, the Christmas movies, we watched them every year all the time, and I thought this could be one of those kinds of movies that families could revisit.
Related Article: Reginald Hudlin Talks ‘Candy Cane Lane’ and Working with Eddie Murphy
2. Eddie Murphy and Reginald Hudlin reunite 30 years later for ‘Candy Cane Lane’
The pair first worked together on the 1992 rom-com ‘Boomerang.’ Hudlin had been interested in making a Christmas movie and learned during a meeting with Amazon that Murphy was also interested. Everything aligned for the actor and director to reunion 30 years after their first collaboration.
Reginald Hudlin: Yeah, we had been talking, we would connect and we would throw ideas back and forth. And then, I was meeting with Amazon and I was like, “I really want to do a Christmas movie.” “We have a Christmas movie and Eddie Murphy wants to do it.” I’m like, “Let’s start Monday.” It’s not complicated.
Eddie Murphy: But actually, he put together this great presentation, the best I’d ever seen anybody put together, and how he would do the movie and stuff. It was like, “Hey, this is a no-brainer. He just saw the whole thing from the beginning.”
3. Tracee Ellis Ross on ‘Candy Cane Lane’ capturing all the elements of a Christmas movie
Playing opposite Eddie Murphy’s Chris Carver is Tracee Ellis Ross as Carol Carver. During the press conference, Ross talks about what defines an iconic Christmas movie for her.
Tracee Ellis Ross: I think love, family, and a message that’s at the center of it, which we have in this movie, that the family comes together to conquer a bad elf, a rogue elf, so to speak. I think the thing that’s special about this movie is it’s an adventure comedy Christmas movie. It’s funny, there’s adventure. As I said, there’s hijinks, action, children, lots of lights and decorations, special effects, Eddie Murphy. These are a lot of the elements, but it’s a good story that has all these elements on it, and we hope that it becomes a holiday classic.
4. The younger cast was horrified on their first day on set, for the best reasons possible
Rounding out the Carver family are Thaddeus J. Mixson as Nick Carver, Genneya Walton as Joy Carver, and Madison Thomas as Holly Carver. ‘Candy Cane Lane’ isn’t their first acting job, but it is their first time working with a legend such as Eddie Murphy.
Genneya Walton: First of all, I was horrified for the best reasons possible. I was like, “Girl, you better have your stuff together.’ I think my first day was on the track scene.
Speaking to Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross, she says:
“I look up to you guys so much, and I’m inspired by all of your work, so getting to work with you guys is wonderful, and I learned so much truly, just from watching you guys do what you do, so it was freaking sick.”
Co-stars Mixson and Thomas express the same sentiment.
Thaddeus J. Mixon: I’ll tell you right now, boy, I was nervous. I was nervous. I ain’t know what, I was just like, man, I was just watching y’all on TV. Now, I’m about to actually share the screen with y’all. It is truly an honor for real. I’m blessed to even have the opportunity to even work with y’all. And also, work with Reggie as well. I worked with him on my first ever movie, so it’s always fun when I work with him, so it’s a blessing.
Madison Thomas: Yeah, I was very nervous because I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know anything. I’m going to be honest. I didn’t know anybody. But then, we started working more on set and then I kind of felt comfortable, and then that’s how we started building a relationship.
5. Jillian Bell as the mischievous elf, Pepper
When Eddie Murphy’s character Chris comes across a mysterious Christmas decor store, he is enthralled by the elaborate and magical items. However, the store was run by Pepper- a mischievous elf who liked to play tricks on unsuspecting customers.
Bell elaborates on what drew her to the character.
Jillian Bell: The first time I read the script, I just kept talking like her out loud, which is a good sign. It’s a bad sign if you’re not an actor. As an actor, it was a good sign to me because I just kept doing her voice. And I was like, “Oh, there’s something here.” And I just fell in love with the world of it. I was so excited for the opportunity to get to work with everybody that was involved and I just think Reggie is one of the kindest, most wonderful directors, and — you guys can attest this too, like, if you have a creative idea and you’re nervous about it. There’s no nerves attached, approaching Reggie with it. So I think I think after our first meeting, I was like, oh, no, I really want to do this film.
Tracee Ellis Ross and Robin Thede chimes in about Bell’s performance in the film:
Robin Thede: The brilliant thing about Jillian Bell is that she does bring that humanity to these characters and exactly what Kelly [Younger] had envisioned, which is that she’s not just a one-note evil person. She truly believes in what she’s doing and like, you get it like. I don’t think that I thought I was rooting against Pepper. I was just like, “Oh, well, obviously you can’t win, but like you’re kind of like misguided. She’s also really fun, and evil and violent, and all of that. But there’s just some really epic acting moments, too.
Tracee Ellis Ross: Jillian Bell is… Yes. Seriously, that moment when she appears in this, you’re just like, “What is happening? And why does that twinkle in her eye actually look like evil in her eye?”
And as Pepper says in the movie, “What’s Christmas without a little terror?”
6. The cast on working with Nick Offerman
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Nick Offerman (‘The Last of Us’) plays Pip, a man who’s been turned into a porcelain miniature figure by Pepper. He stars alongside Robin Thede’s Cordelia and Chris Redd’s Lamplighter Gary, who have also fallen to the same fate.
Offerman was not present at the press conference, but his co-stars praised his performance.
Robin Thede: Nick Offerman talks, everything stops.
According to Hudlin, it was Offerman’s idea to keep his character British.
Reginald Hudlin: First of all, Nick was just like, “You know, there’s always British actors and play American parts. I’m gonna play a British part.” I was like, “Oh, that’s great.” Because again, I just wanted the three village people, as we call you guys as different as possible, right? And it’s just like, I’m like, “Okay, I don’t know, my son’s gonna take this because like, he’s so ‘Parks and Rec.’ He’s so locked in.” I’m like, “But, you know, Nick Offerman’s a genius. We’re gonna let him do this.” And he just found a new hilarious character and the way he played off the two of you was exquisite.
Jillian Bell: His first line was very reminiscent of ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles.’ And my heart broke for him. And I’m like, he literally has been on screen for 10 seconds. I’m in I’m invested. I mean, I was invested in the tiny version of it, but I’m saying just his face too, like, he is an incredible actor, and he should be in so many.
7. The script is inspired by a personal story, minus the evil elf
Writer Kelly Younger based the story on his personal experience as well as the location.
Kelly Younger: It is a personal true story. My parents live on the street that leads into Candy Cane Lane and El Segundo. They’ve lived there for many years. My dad over-decorates every year, goes over the top, much to my mother’s dismay.
He continues:
Kelly Younger: I wanted to bring in magic and mischief and to have lot of fun, but it was really important to me that it was grounded in a real family. And I think especially what Eddie and Tracee did, how they captured what felt like a very real relationship. And this family felt very, really real. To have these folks bring it to life is just wonderful.
8. The process of blending live-action and CGI together
Inside Pepper’s shop, Chris Carver comes across a miniature Christmas town, along with miniature figures – Pip, Cordelia, and Lamplighter Gary, who come to life. The cast talks about the process of making those scenes come together.
It took the special effects team from ILM and teamwork from the cast and crew to blend the human actors and the porcelain figures together in the final product. Hudlin talks about working with ILM:
Reginald Hudlin: They had face references but not body references, and [the actors] came up with all this fantastic physical comedy on top of the great verbal comedy, and that was amazing. It was a great collaboration working with them on that.
Eddie Murphy: Yeah, when you see the special effects shots and stuff like that, those things are really time-consuming and it’s awkward, and it’s just a lot of work doing a sequence like that. It’s really putting a jigsaw puzzle together when you’re doing those sequences, so it was just long and frustrating.
Tracee Ellis Ross: Yeah, because you’re acting with an imaginary thing, and it requires a different kind of acting.
Although Offerman, Thede, and Redd are playing CGI characters, Murphy wanted everyone on set together for every scene to make it more authentic.
Reginald Hudlin: The very fact that I didn’t intend for us to have to invent some technology, but we did. We had this reindeer system so that the actors, the villagers, and the live-action actors could act in the same scene at the same time and improvise.
Chris Redd: We were in these little booths. And like, so the animators could create, like, animate while we talked, and that was some different ways to see each other, so we were just riffing the whole time.
Robin Thede: The cool thing about the process, which was so fun, is that Eddie was really like, “No, I want them on stage with us rehearsing in person”, right in our full size, although I’ve not much taller than my ornament. But that was really fun. So I was saying earlier, like, we were really involved in most of the scenes in the movie, even if you don’t see us on screen, because it was really important to Eddie and Tracy and the kids and everybody that we were there and bouncing off of them just in case we were going to jump in. So all those conversations where we’re at the house or they were at their house or whatever, we were there for months because it was important to really get that vibe, and I think you feel it because they were looking at just lights or like little monopoly pieces. So we would rehearse in person, and then we would be banished to our little sound booths, but we could see them on a monitor, and they could hear us in their IEMs. And then they would shoot our faces with like a GoPro.
9. The cast on working with Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy has been in the industry for over 40 years. His extensive list of credits vary from comedy to action to drama and has been in many classic such as ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ‘Coming To America,’ ‘The Nutty Professor,’ ‘Shrek,’ ‘Mulan,’ ‘Dreamgirls,’ ‘Dolemite Is My Name,’ and more.
The cast talks about being fans of his work and about their experience working with him on ‘Candy Cane Lane.’
Tracee Ellis Ross: The thing about Eddie is he’s hilarious. But, what makes everyone hilarious around him is he’s a really generous actor. For Eddie, it’s about the groundedness, which is the reason that I have loved his comedy for so long. It’s not based in being funny. It’s based in being real. And so, there’s a connection that has to be there for it to come across in the right way, and that’s what he does. He’s not sitting there trying to get you to set up his funny and his jokes. He’s actually in a scene playing with you. That’s what makes it fun, and that’s what makes it work. I think, I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but that’s what I experienced, and what a treat and an honor at this point in my career to be able to work with somebody that you’ve admired, whose work you’ve known and grown up with to a certain extent.
Reginald Hudlin: This is the thing. The thing is, I’ve always said that Eddie deserved an Oscar for his performance in ‘The Nutty Professor.’ Because it’s like there’s no acting school that says this is how to act against a tennis ball, but he did that. He played two different women that were completely different women, but because people go, “Oh, it’s just laughs. It’s not funny. That’s not hard.” It’s incredibly hard. He was a pioneer in that style of performance, which he doesn’t get credit for.
D. C. Young Fly: If you sit back and watch all the different elements and understand like, just Christmas, and specials, and understanding that Eddie is an icon. It’s just being around that it brings that out of us, you know what I’m saying? I feel like everybody was just trying to be on their A-game because this is an Eddie Murphy movie. Why wouldn’t we come here and not be on our A-game?
Chris Redd: I swear to God, the first day, I think I wrote fifteen jokes on the way to set, just like “I might use them.”
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What is the Plot of ‘Candy Cane Lane’?
A local neighborhood hosts an annual contest over who has the best decorated home for Christmas; desperate to win, Chris Carver (Eddie Murphy) makes a deal with a charismatic stranger, Pepper (Jillian Bell), for the use of magic to make his home the most festive. He soon learns that Pepper is an evil elf who has made similar deals in the past, with her victims being transformed into plastic dolls. Chris must rally his family to stop Pepper from unleashing misery upon his friends and neighbors and break the deal before he loses everything.
Who’s in the cast of ‘Candy Cane Lane’?
- Eddie Murphy (‘You People’) as Chris Carver
- Tracee Ellis Ross (‘The High Note’) as Carol Carver
- Jillian Bell (‘Godmothered’) as Pepper
- Ken Marino (‘Wet Hot American Summer’)
- Nick Offerman (‘The Founder’)
- Robin Thede (‘A Haunted House’)
- Chris Redd (‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’)
Other Movies Similar to ‘Candy Cane Lane’:
- ‘Trading Places‘ (1983)
- ‘Gremlins‘ (1984)
- ‘Lethal Weapon‘ (1987)
- ‘Scrooged‘ (1988)
- ‘Die Hard‘ (1988)
- ‘Home Alone‘ (1990)
- ‘Boomerang‘ (1992)
- ‘The Santa Clause‘ (1994)
- ‘Jingle All the Way‘ (1996)
- ‘Elf‘ (2003)
- ‘Bad Santa‘ (2003)
- ‘Love Actually‘ (2003)
- ‘Christmas with the Kranks‘ (2004)
- ‘Surviving Christmas‘ (2004)
- ‘Deck the Halls‘ (2006)
- ‘Fred Claus‘ (2007)
- ‘Four Christmases‘ (2008)
- ‘Krampus‘ (2015)
- ‘The Night Before‘ (2015)
- ‘The Christmas Chronicles‘ (2018)
- ‘Violent Night‘ (2022)
- ‘Spirited‘ (2022)
Buy Eddie Murphy Movies On Amazon
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