I’m still thinking about how weird it is that the Wall Street Journal, once a beacon for straight, conservative business reporting, published that incredibly petty and poorly-sourced hit piece on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex last weekend. I would love to know the editorial decision making behind it, and whether “smearing the Sussexes” is a company-wide mandate at News Corp. In any case, despite the Murdoch-driven narratives about Harry and Meghan’s business, the Sussexes are fine and their Netflix deal is fine. It’s looking more and more like the Sussexes signed a five-year content deal with Netflix… and it’s looking like Netflix is happy with what they’ve achieved and what they’ve got coming.
A little over a week after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s production studio, Archewell, announced they would be consciously uncoupling with Spotify (the official language was “mutually agreed to part ways”), Netflix is affirming its dedication to the blue bloods.
“The bond with Archewell Productions is one we deeply value,” a Netflix spokesperson told Entertainment Tonight (via Hello!). “[The docuseries] Harry & Meghan launched as Netflix’s most spectacular documentary debut to date. Our exciting journey with them isn’t ending anytime soon. We’re currently collaborating on numerous projects, including the much-anticipated documentary series Heart of Invictus.”
Hello! reports that the royals’ Netflix deal is allegedly worth around $100 million. The Spotify agreement was rumored to be worth around $20 million, and incidentally, The New York Times has speculated that Prince Harry’s bestselling tell-all Spare was part of a supposed $20 million multi-book contract. (In other words, the couple is getting on grandly despite tabloid headlines.)
Yeah, the gloom and doom over their Netflix deal was just gossip-coattailing on the Spotify mess. My theory/guess is that Spotify is an utter clownshow behind-the-scenes, and when the Sussexes were finding it increasingly difficult to work with them, Spotify leaked the initial report to the Wall Street Journal and then Spotify went overboard to explain why the Sussexes weren’t part of their antivaxx bro culture. Spotify looked unprofessional and juvenile. On the other hand, Netflix seems to have some competent professionals in their ranks, so there you go. The five-year production contract is still in effect.
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
Lol Netflix said ‘I don’t know her” to the Spotify mess.
They said Ww don’t fumble bags and lose hit makers and millions of dollars in free advertising over here.
Lol Netflix said ‘I don’t know her” to the Spotify mess. They said we don’t fumble bags and lose hit makers and millions of dollars in free advertising over here.
With an agent in tow, the Sussexes were advised to walk away from Spotify, standard practice in this particular arena. That factor became bastardized by propagandists in Murdoch-owned and other right-wing leaning media.
It was unfortunate that Netflix had to issue a statement on this non-issue.
It is just the state of the world we live in.
Yes, that dumb CEO’s comment absolutely screams sour grapes! Spotify is turned down or rebuffed, and the CEO’s response is to yell like a spoiled child: “Well you’re talentless anyway!” Could you imagine being married to or living with that person?? LOL LOL
Sightly off-topic and not that this would be produced by archwell, but it’d be cool to see Netflix do a reunion special with the cast of suits. Not sure Meghan would even want to but the series streams so well for Netflix. Imagine it’d be expensive though.
I have a feeling it will happen sooner or later and it will be glorious to see Meghan putting her hair down a bit.
Considering how popular Suits looks to be on Netflix currently, I don’t think that’s an outlandish idea.
Oh, Meghan would 100% do a Suits reunion, especially if it was connected to a good cause.
A good cause… maybe Legal Aid?
If there’s a reunion of Suits I suspect it would be on Peacock not Netflix as Suits was a USA and now a Peacock show.
Suits is now on Netflix.
Harry and Meghan leaving Spotify at the same time others have left was overblown in the British/Murdoch press for clicks and smears. It does sound like Harry and Meghan have a better relationship with Netflix than they had with Spotify.
@AMYBEE, yep, Spotify laid of hundreds of staff, lots of people quit the platform but hey, dotty spottys mouthpiece had to try and blame someone as he couldn’t possibly admit that spotty failed to take into account the plethora of other steaming platforms coming down the road, or that they had over extended themselves. NOOOO they looked to jump on the murdoch media hate bandwagon and failed to get the full ride
This is the professional and reasonable response. Their Netflix deal is fine. Their Spotify deal did not work out for a variety of reasons, and it would not have been a big deal if Bill Simmons hadn’t decided to start slamming H&M and if the WSJ hadn’t decided to make their exit from Spotify into a “thing.”
H&M gave Netflix their biggest docuseries debut ever. Of course they value them.
I suspect that Spotify signed them hoping that they would do something like a Royal Gossip pod, or that they could talk them into doing it. That is what I took away from the phone calls between Simmons and Harry. Harry would pitch his feel good ideas, and Simmons would try to convince him to do the opposite.
I’d be willing to bet Spotify bought into the meathead party bro image the media sold about Harry and they were hoping for a royal version of Joe Rogan to add to their line up.
WSJ just did another piece – saying that Meg’s Pearl was canceled bc “American kids don’t care about a show made by a ditches”… when we all know they slimmed down their entire animation department, not just Meghan’s show.
I wish to God these two could just live their lives without random nasty people talking shit about them.
I think there is most likely a Rupert Murdoch mandate to smear the Sussexes.
Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun is the outlet that published Jeremy Clarkson’s racist and misogynistic screed against Meghan Markle last December.
Also, Prince Harry is in the process of suing Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN).
It’s so obvious that this is all coming from Murdoch. I wish some news outlets would run with that story.