Kimberley Sustad & Paul Campbell are working on 2 new films

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Hallmark actors and screenwriters Kimberley Sustad and Paul Campbell

Actors Kimberley Sustad and Paul Campbell quickly become as powerful behind the camera as they are in front of it. The dynamic duo co-wrote and co-starred in Hallmark Channel’s Three Wise Men and a Baby, which premiered in November and became the most-watched cable TV movie of 2022.

Though both are still in Hallmark films — Sustad’s Game of Love premiered March 12, while Campbell’s The Cases of Mystery Lane debuted on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries March 19 — they’re such a sought-after writing team now that they have to develop more than one film at a time. In a new interview, Sustad dropped some hints about what’s in the works that fans should watch out for.

Kimberley Sustad reveals she’s writing two new films with Paul Campbell

MarkThe cast of “Three Wise Men and a Baby” includes Paul Campbell, Kimberley Sustad, Andrew Walker and Tyler Hynes

Sustad and Campbell had been working as a writing team for a number of years when Hallmark asked them to play with an idea it had been considering: pairing Campbell with two other network fan favorites — Andrew Walker and Tyler Hynes — to star in a film on the 1987 hit “Three Men and a Baby,” Campbell said MediaVillage.

Campbell said: “They called (us) and said, ‘We’d like to do a movie with these guys. Would you be interested in writing it? What story can you come up with?’ They kind of planted the seed and then (Kimberley) and I grew the tree.

“My goal with Kim was to write natural-sounding dialogue the way people speak, but that’s not always the case,” he continued. “We know Tyler and Andrew, so we knew how they spoke and had their voices in the back of our minds. But I handed over the script and once we got on set I wasn’t a writer anymore. Anyone who came up with something funnier than what was written on the page won.”

Between Sustad and Campbell’s lyrics and the stars’ promotional messages, the comedy was a smash hit and paved the way for them to keep writing the funny material they love. At the moment they are working on two films at the same time, Sustad said TV fanatic in an interview published on March 11, 2023.

She said: “Paul and I are writing a script called ‘My Week in Wyoming’ that will be an amazing story. It’s almost like a “City Slickers”. And it’s not Christmas, but it’s really funny.”

The second film is top secret, she said, but one she has high hopes for.

“We’re also working on a Christmas movie that we’re writing, and I can’t comment on that,” she continued, “but hopefully it’s going to bring the doors down too.” So we actually have a lot of fun doing that at the same time.”

Of course, many fans have expressed hopes for a Three Wise Men and a Baby sequel, but Campbell said Wide Open Country in December that it was more likely they would reunite in new roles.

“The consensus was that just because it’s so difficult to rekindle that magic and tell a different story, but the same, a sequel would probably be a mistake,” Campbell said. “We want to take three – the three guys – and continue to do different films with the three guys. Reinvent ourselves every time. And I think we can have a lot of fun.”

At the time, he said they had “an idea that’s already leaking out” that they wanted to pitch to Hallmark Channel, so it’s possible that’s the Christmas movie he and Sustad are developing.

Sustad says working with Campbell is a ‘perfect fit’

MarkKimberley Sustad and Paul Campbell in 2020’s Christmas By Starlight

Sustad and Campbell started out as writing partners on the 2020 Hallmark film Christmas By Starlight, she said TV fanatic in an interview published on March 11, 2023. It started while they were making another movie, A Christmas Godwink, when they realized they had good chemistry and laughed a lot together.

“The movie was really sentimental and we kept saying, ‘Oh, I wish we had a chance to do a romcom or something,’ to really test our energy,” she recalled. “Because when the cameras started rolling, it was joke after joke and we laughed hysterically, even though that wasn’t the movie we were making.”

When Campbell asked her if she’d ever considered writing screenplays, Sustad recalls saying no — but also sharing an idea for a film she had that he loved. Months later, Campbell convinced Sustad to develop the story with him, which they did without telling anyone on the network. Then, ahead of a Hallmark event, she said they surprised executives by coming up with a movie idea and script for “Christmas By Starlight.”

She said, “We pitched the film to them, and then we gave them the script, and they were like, ‘What? You wrote that?’ And we said, ‘Yes, yes. So read it.’ And they did and loved it. And that’s how we started.”

About a year later, they shot the film, she said, adding, “We’ve just kept going ever since.”

With several films under their belt, including the hugely successful Three Wise Men and a Baby, they found that what started on a whim turned out to be a very smart move.

“We have very different skillsets that work surprisingly well together when we’re making a film, which I didn’t realize at the time,” she told TV Fanatic. “I really didn’t know much about writing, but I knew a lot about stories. And then when we started putting those pieces together, it just fitted perfectly.”

Campbell said the same thing to Media Village, explaining their different strengths as writers.

“Kimberley has an exceptional gift for storytelling and character,” said Campbell. “And it’s like an encyclopedia of 90’s rom-coms. She understands stories and what makes them compelling. I have a technical eye and am good at taking those ideas and turning them into a dialogue. She’s like a broad stroke (artist) giving me a lump of clay and saying, ‘I think it has to (maybe) look like this.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I can make a pony out of this,’ and then we work together to kind of polish it up. Everything just works.”