Dolly Parton’s Made-for-TV Movies Won’t All Be Faith-Based Stories

Dolly Parton's recent made-for-TV movie, Coat of Many Colors, starring Jennifer Nettles and Ricky Schroder, became the most-watched movie on broadcast TV in three years when it aired in December. It's a good thing, then, that the country icon has plenty more film projects in the works -- though they won't all be as faith-based as Coat of Many Colors.

"We’re working on Jolene now. [People] said, ‘Well, you’re not going to do Jolene, and she’s not going to be trashy, is she?’ And I said, ‘Well she certainly is!'" Parton told The Boot and other reporters at a media event, with a laugh. "Maybe she can become a Christian later.

"I’m a girl of many colors," Parton adds, "and my songs are my songs, and my stories are my stories."

Parton will also be doing a movie called The Seeker, based on her song by the same name, which appears on 1975's Dolly: The Seeker / We Used To.

"It’s a faith-based story, kind of about a Christ-type figure that travels the world, trying to find himself, but also having a gift and trying to help people," she shares. "Kind of like Highway to Heaven and Touched By an Angel, that type of thing. We’re going to do that, and if that does well, we’d like to make that into a series."

The Tennessee native hasn't ruled out other projects, either, as long as they honor the people in her life whom she cherishes the most.

"With Coat of Many Colors, it was less about me than my family, because I’ve always said I wanted to honor my father and my mother," Parton says. "I don’t think it just means to obey them, but I think it means to bring honor to their name and who they are. I really wanted to show people the kind of people that I came from."

Coat of Many Colors will be released on DVD on May 3. The package will include a song called "Mama," which Parton wrote, along with extra scenes that were cut for the televised version.

"You have to edit a movie forever to get the time for TV, but we really left a lot of stuff in," Parton explains. "We left a lot of scenes that didn’t make it, some interviews, the making of the movie. It’s really got a lot of interesting things in it."

A streaming version of Coat of Many Colors is available for purchase on Amazon.

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