A Biltmore Christmas

Her career has been stalled for several years, so screenwriter Lucy Hargrove must make good on her latest plum assignment: to write the screenplay for the planned remake of 1940s holiday classic "His Merry Wife!", the surprise success of which revived the career of leading lady Ava Hayward and made a star out of then-relatively-unknown Jack Huston, who did not get a chance to enjoy that stardom, dying unexpected on Christmas Eve a year after filming wrapped. Lucy decides to change the original movie's happy ending to an uncertain one, arguing that it is more modern and realistic; her otherwise-supportive sister Becca believes that singleton Lucy has a cynical view of love. This change also does not sit well with studio head Michael Balaban, the grandson of studio founder Harold Balaban, who greenlit the original production while all the other major studios passed on it. Hopefully to provide some inspiration as to his view, Balaban, for the holidays, sends Lucy to the original movie's iconic setting, the Biltmore Estate, the inn at which which is done up for the holidays largely to capitalize on the movie's success. Lucy discovers that many fans do spend the holidays there, this year including super-fan Margaret Majors. But in being given special access by the manager Winston to some of the estate's otherwise restricted areas associated to the movie, Lucy discovers, much to her incredulity, that she has the ability to travel back in time to the actual filming in December 1947, all tied to one of the movie's key props, an hourglass, each of her visits to 1947 only until the sand runs out. While her first visits to 1947 were before she knew how to control it, her latest visit is of her own doing in discovering some information about the original movie which could influence her screenplay. In the process, she sees some of the discord with the production, and gets to know the real people behind the movie, including writer/director William West, the leading man Claude Lancaster, and both Hayward and especially Huston, with who she makes a connection. But Lucy hits an uncertain future when she could alter the course of the players, thus the outcome of the original movie, and something happens that threatens her ability to make it back to the present.