Rachael Leigh Cook Is Hopping From Hallmark To Netflix For Her Next Rom-Com

Rachael Leigh Cook in her new Netflix rom-com Love, Guaranteed

Rachael Leigh Cook is probably still most prominently known for her roles in teen comedies like She’s All That around the turn of the century. However, if you’ve seen her in anything lately, it’s likely been a Hallmark movie. She’s the star of popular Vineyard movies on the cabler and even starred in a Christmas movie on the network last year. Now, it looks like she’ll be taking her romantic comedy skills to Netflix.

Netflix has been big on poaching popular talent in recent years. While there’s no rule that says a Hallmark star must stay with Hallmark over the long haul, in the upcoming Love, Guaranteed, Rachael Leigh Cook will star opposite Happy Endings’ Damon Wayans, Jr in a storyline revolving a lawsuit over a dating website. I know, it does sound a little Hallmark-y. And now, there’s a trailer!

In Love, Guaranteed, Damon Wayans’ Jr.’s character Nick Evans, looks up Rachael Leigh Cook’s Susan, who is a prominent lawyer. The reason? He’s gone on more than 900 dates (yes, you read that right) with a dating site that guarantees love and still hadn’t found it. The two hatch a lawsuit against the website in question, but as part of the research, Susan gets on the dating website herself. Battlestar Galactica’s Candace McClure, frequent Hallmark collaborator and Riverdale actor Alvin Sanders and Heather Graham also appear in the movie.

Love, Guaranteed actually wrapped back in November of last year, which is how we are able to even be getting the content now. Just a few short months later and who knows if Rachael Leigh Cook and co. would have gotten the movie in under the wire for a 2020 release? Productions on a lot of films shut down just a few scant months later.

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The good news is that both Netflix and Hallmark were able to deal with quarantine life fairly well and roll out content at a pace that felt organic and gave people new programming to look forward to, despite work halting for a while. Now productions in various places across the globe are getting back to work and we should have plenty more to look forward to, including a slew of rom-coms on the subscription streamer.

Meanwhile, in particular Rachael Leigh Cook has spoken out about her fondness for playing Frankie in the Vineyard movies, telling ET previously that a fourth could be in the cards if the writers could think up an activity for her character and Brendan Penny’s. She noted:

We would absolutely love to make more, and if people speak up, I'm sure it's possible, because there are any number of adventures and misadventures you could have in the vineyard. We could honeymoon in the vineyard. We could have to go to France to tag along with Marco and Lexi on their honeymoon and learn to make wine out there. The fans of the franchise would really have to speak up to help us out.

So, Rachael Leigh Cook certainly hasn’t defected from her Hallmark family at this point, and reportedly has a Christmas movie coming again this year. While we wait, be sure to go to the right streaming service when you check out Love, Guaranteed starting on September 3. To see what else Netflix has coming up, check out our full schedule.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.