All she wants for Christmas ... Mariah Carey plans festive movie

‘I’m all about the holiday season,’ says the singer – and who could argue with that?

It has been announced that Mariah Carey -  who has sold 14 million copies of  ‘All I Want For Christmas’ - has sold a pitch for a Christmas movie. Photograph: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
It has been announced that Mariah Carey - who has sold 14 million copies of ‘All I Want For Christmas’ - has sold a pitch for a Christmas movie. Photograph: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

She doesn’t want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing she needs. She doesn’t care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree. She just wants you for her own. More than you could ever know. Make her wish come true. Baby, all she wants for Christmas is you.

Of course, if you aren't going to be around for the festive season, Mariah Carey will probably just settle for her own blockbuster movie.

It has been announced that the All I Want For Christmas singer has sold a pitch for a Christmas movie, which will see her play a major role as well as provide the music.

Take it away Mariah Carey, queen of Christmas. Tinsel us up.

READ SOME MORE

It makes sense. She wrote the theme tune, she sang the theme tune. After releasing two festive albums, Carey has earned her celluloid crack at Christmas.

If there is anyone who doesn't find themselves singing along to All I Want For Christmas as soon as the shops get the decorations up, they might reveal themselves now and I will delete them from the Christmas card list.

Carey took the idea of a festive movie to Hercules director Brett Ratner. She also hopes to star in it, Hollywood website Deadline reported.

Maybe Carey wasn't acquainted with the director's earlier work. In 2005, Ratner produced the disturbingly named Santa's Slay, giving us bad Santa, before we had even come to know there was a Bad Santa.

The plot of Carey’s film is being kept under wraps, but Deadline reports that it revolves around the idea that “the power of music can transport you back in time to your truest feelings”.

Naturally Carey has form on the Christmas movie pitch. When she brought out Merry Christmas in 1994, she also fancied a flutter at the movies.

It was reported that the plot of Mariah's musical would revolve around a small town where a ruthless developer wanted to turn the land into a large shopping plaza. You know how that one worked out. Fortunately Nama, the musical has not yet been made.

“Since I recorded the Christmas album, I’ve always wanted to make a movie to go with it, something that people could watch and hear and enjoy every year. I’m into it. I’m all about the holiday season.”

Yes, Mariah Carey you are all about the holiday season. Many of us wouldn't have it any other way. Those 14 million copies of All I Want For Christmas you shifted definitely count for something.

And any woman who can make the guys at Wikipedia unsure of what year to put down as their birth year has won the internet. Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970), it says. Look and learn, Kim Kardashian.

There are so many reasons to love Mariah.

Christmas.

Her Marilyn fetish (her twin daughter is called Monroe).

Christmas.

Her reading habit.

Christmas.

The fact that she had to learn to walk in flat shoes for her knock-out role as a dowdy social worker in Precious. ("Princess tippy-toes" had to be remastered, director Lee Daniels insisted.)

Christmas.

And my personal favourite: the fact that before the tree-lighting ceremony at the White House in 2013, Aretha Franklin entered fangirl Carey's trailer singing All I Want for Christmas.

Now that’s what we call Christmas. Respect.

Next Christmas, Mariah’s opus will be 21 (or 20, depending on what Wikipedia says.)

If it comes to pass, Mariah will make a mint out of this new movie merriment. Next Christmas we can give her our heart. Again.

Anthea McTeirnan

Anthea McTeirnan

Anthea McTeirnan is an Irish Times journalist