Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Meghan MarkleandPrince Harryare coming off arecord-breaking Netflix series, ahit podcastand abestselling book— yet finding solid footing in Hollywood remains an ongoing challenge.
Joe Quenqua, a senior media strategist, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story that the latest headlines reflect “serious growing pains” for the couple’s nascent Archewell brand.
But for Harry, 38, and Meghan, who turns 42 on Friday, “there wasn’t necessarily a five-year plan” — as one royal insider puts it — when they left the U.K. The couple stepped back as working members of the royal family in 2020 and moved to Meghan’s home state of California, telling Oprah Winfrey that the decision was life-or-death.
“Terrified” that his wife would suffer the same fate as his mother, Princess Diana, who died at age 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash, Prince Harry said in their Netflix docuseriesHarry & Meghan,“I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
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Royal life “wasn’t a world they wanted for their family,” says the royal insider, noting that their choices reflect that. “Everything else flows from that, for whatever time period it takes.”
The pair signed deals with Netflix and Spotify shortly after the transatlantic move but production has moved slowly in the three years since, as Hollywood has navigated COVID-19, studios subsequently tightening their belts and the ongoing strikes.
“The royal element and, in some ways, the drama around them inflated the price, deals and expectations,” says a top Hollywood insider.
Meanwhile, a source close to theArchetypesproduction says the couple was not set up for success on Spotify: “They were given no formal lay of the land to kick things off, so they were already on unsteady footing even before the ink was dry.”
Though Archewell Audio produced just 12 episodes ofArchetypesfor Spotfiy, the source noted, they “have a lot of ideas and did pitch them,” but said there was too much red tape between Spotify and the Sussexes. “Things moved very slowly on both ends.”
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“Has their final chapter been written? Absolutely not,” an industry executive tells PEOPLE. “Hollywood loves a comeback.”
source: people.com
