🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
It has been four years since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle split from the monarchy and signed a multi-million-dollar content production deal with streaming giant Netflix, but after three docuseries and a show cancelation, many of their projects are still in the "very early development" stages, an executive has said.
Speaking at a Hollywood preview event on Thursday, Bela Bajaria, Netflix's chief content officer, said the Sussexes and their Archewell Productions company have a number of diverse projects on the go. Newsweek approached Archewell representatives via email for comment.
Per the U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Bajaria said that Harry and Meghan have "a couple of unscripted things they're working on" with Brandon Riegg, Netflix's vice president of unscripted.
"They actually have, like, a bunch of development," Bajaria added. "They have a movie in development, a (scripted) series that they're working on.
"So, all very early development, with a movie, a TV show and a couple of unscripted shows. But, yeah, the movie's great."
Meghan recently said in a red-carpet interview that there were a number of "exciting" projects being worked on, which weren't ready to be made public.
"We have so many exciting things on the slate," Meghan said at the Variety Power of Women gala in November. "I can't wait until we can announce them, but I'm just really proud of what we're creating, and my husband is loving it, too."
With these repeated promises of exciting new content from Harry and Meghan, fans may be disappointed to hear from Bajaria that, after four years, they may be in for a longer wait.
However, Mark Boardman, entertainment expert and founder of MarkMeets, told Newsweek some delay could have been caused by factors outside the royal couple's control, while part could also be a deliberate choice.
"While the production output from Archewell Productions appears slower than some might anticipate from the duke and duchess of Sussex, several factors need consideration," Boardman said.
"These include not only COVID and the SAG-AFTRA strikes, but also the couple's personal circumstances, including children, and other agreements, such as filming for the Invictus Games for Harry and event management."
These external factors, with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes affecting industry-wide production work for nearly six months in 2023 and the COVID-19 pandemic creating a backlog of delays, may not be the only reason fans will be kept waiting for further Archewell content, Boardman added.
"Harry and Meghan's slow work output must be a joint decision," he said. "In that, rather than rushing out content to meet public expectations, they are focusing on quality projects.
"Now is the time to start making announcements about the future, ranging from film and television production docuseries to the adaptation of Meet Me at the Lake. These recent announcements suggest that these and other projects might be in earlier stages," Boardman said.
So far, Meet Me at the Lake, a scripted adaptation of Carley Fortune's 2023 romance novel, is the only confirmed project that Archewell Productions is working on.
Prior to this, the only other non-scripted work known to the public was the development of Meghan's children's animation series, Pearl. It was scrapped by Netflix in 2022 as part of a wider scaling down of the streaming giant's animation division.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more