Last month, Prince Harry and Oprah announced that they were co-executive producing a series about mental health, as part of Oprah’s extensive new deal with AppleTV+. AppleTV+ will try to become the next Hulu/Netflix, with a million streaming options and a billion dollars to throw around for miniseries and the like. When the Harry/Oprah thing was announced, the British papers threw an absolute fit because princes aren’t supposed to sit around and talk about their feelings, especially to American celebrities like Oprah. They accused Harry of going Hollywood like his actress wife. They looked down their noses at him for daring to… like, do his own thing and not wait for William and Kate to be keen. Well… Prince William is coming to Netflix.

Royal rivalries were once fought out on the battlefield; these days they take place on the small screen. I hear that Prince William has been lined up for a TV programme with streaming giant Netflix after Prince Harry was snapped up by its powerful new U.S. rival, Apple TV+. The documentary would be to mark the 30th anniversary of Tusk, the wildlife conservation charity of which Wills is royal patron.

‘It’s a big project,’ an insider reveals. ‘It will be a feature-length show that Netflix will show around the world. It will highlight William’s vital work to save wildlife and will feature Tusk’s current projects in Africa. Tusk thinks it will be brilliant in spreading the word about conservation.’

Netflix would be hoping the royal programme could repeat the huge success of Sir David Attenborough’s first series for the broadcaster, Our Planet, which was watched by more British subscribers than any other show last month.

[From The Daily Mail]

To be clear, it does sound like these are two significantly different projects. Harry’s thing is a docu-series which he executive produced and will likely only appear on camera a few times. I get the feeling that it’s mostly behind-the-scenes work. William’s thing sounds like Will agreeing to do an interview for a stand-alone documentary about a charity he really does care about, and one for which he serves as the royal patron. It feels like this Daily Mail piece is like “look, William has a big thing too!” but it’s probably like an hour out of his day to sit down for an interview? But sure, let the princes fight it out over Netflix and AppleTV+. I wonder if the British reporters will have an equally nasty hissy about William being too Hollywood??

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