Heavy/Hallmark Hallmark's Benjamin Ayres and Nikki DeLoach
Three years after starring in the Hallmark Channel movie “Cranberry Christmas,” Benjamin Ayres and Nikki DeLoach will kick off 2024 by reuniting in a new mystery movie. The good friends will appear in “True Justice: Family Ties,” premiering on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on January 12.
Ayres and DeLoach — and their fans — have hoped for an onscreen reunion for a while. So they announced their upcoming project with a bit of fanfare, recruiting some of their fellow Hallmark stars to appear in an Instagram reel while at Christmas Con over the weekend.
Here’s what you need to know:
Famous Faces Help Benjamin Ayres & Nikki DeLoach Announce New Movie
In their video posted on December 11, Ayres and DeLoach had multiple rom-com stars each recite one letter in a word scramble, challenging fans to use the letters given to figure out the name of their new movie.
The stars who appeared in the video included Ashley Williams, Jessica Lowndes, Taylor Cole, Erin Cahill, Paul Campbell, Andrew Walker, Cindy Busby, Kristoffer Polaha, Kimberley Sustad, and Jonathan Bennett — who amusingly gave his letter while pretending to talk on a banana “phone.”
Ayres and DeLoach finished the video by saying in unison, “See you in January!”
Fans quickly unscrambled the letters to figure out the movie’s title. And while many expressed excitement about “True Justice,” some said they’re still holding out hope for a “Cranberry Christmas” sequel.
One wrote, “If it ain’t Cranberry Christmas, Part 2, I don’t want it! 😂”
According to a Hallmark Media press release, “True Justice” will also star Katherine McNamara and Markian Tarasiuk. The synopsis says that it’s about a law school student who, with the help of her friends, sets out “to prove her brother was wrongfully convicted. The only way to clear his name is by finding the real killer but the closer they get, the more danger they are all in.”
DeLoach will play “Professor Ambrose” while Ayres plays “District Attorney Quinn,” per Hallmark’s website.
Nikki DeLoach Says No One Makes Her Laugh More Than Benjamin Ayres
It’s likely Ayres and DeLoach filmed their parts in “True Justice” right after the summer edition of Christmas Con in Kansas City. On June 15, Ayres posted an Instagram video of them at the airport, writing that they were “off to film something very special.”
Just two months before, in April, DeLoach said they needed to work together again when she spontaneously joined an Instagram Live session Ayres was doing for Romance University, a benevolent community of rom-com fans he launched in late 2022.
“Ben, we really have to work together, I have to see you,” DeLoach told him. “I don’t know if you guys know this, and I say this all the time, but nobody makes me laugh more than Ben Ayres. You just make my soul so happy when I’m around you. It’s like you just are contagious!”
She then laughed heartily when Ayres replied, “I wish I could say the same.”
After DeLoach left the Instagram Live, Ayres said he was just joking with DeLoach and revealed how much he actually cares about her.
“I love everything about Nikki,” he told fans still tuned in. “Truthfully, she teaches me so much about working harder, being kind, and she just inspires me truly in every capacity to be a better human, to be a better parent, to be a better actor. And to just be kind to everybody around me.”
“I don’t even think Romance University would be here if not for Nikki,” Ayres continued. “She’s taught me so much. So, I love you, Nikki.”