Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Report Hints at What’s Next — and It’s Not More Tell-Alls
Finally, a new chapter for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle? After “‘look back’ projects” including Spare and a Netflix docuseries, it seems the two are ready to “look forward” with their Archewell Foundation. An impact report from the foundation — and some shake-ups in staffing — hint at what’s to come for the couple.
2 employees are leaving the Archewell Foundation as Harry and Meghan ‘look forward’
Amid a 2020-2022 impact report from the Archewell Foundation comes clues as to what’s next for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Speaking to Variety about staffing changes, Ashley Hansen, Archewell’s head of communications and global press secretary for Harry and Meghan, shared two staffers will be leaving.
Ben Browning, Archewell Foundation’s head of content, who oversaw Harry & Meghan, will step down when his current deal ends, the outlet reported. Fara Taylor, Archewell’s head of marketing, will also part ways with the foundation in 2023. The roles will not be filled.
Harry and Meghan “remain hugely grateful for their support on those vital ‘look back’ projects, as they now look forward,” Hansen said.
The foundation’s report suggests a turn to scripted content via Archewell Productions
Just because the Archewell Foundation is parting ways with two employees involved in Harry & Meghan, Archetypes, and Spare, doesn’t mean a total move away from television. On the contrary, it seems Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions is zeroing in on scripted content.
According to Jack Royston, Newsweek’s Chief Royal Correspondent and host of The Royal Report podcast, the couple may face new challenges.
“Now that they’ve got that stuff out of the way they can kind of go anywhere and they can choose perhaps to try and rebuild their brand which has taken a knock,” Royston said in the Jan. 30 episode of The Royal Report.
“If that is the case that they’re turning their back on the kind of reality-targeted approach to their Netflix deal and wind up going down the fiction route instead, that will be a landmark shift in their approach,” he explained. “And we will potentially get to see a whole new version of Harry and Meghan as TV producers.”
The podcast host continued, saying the shift may come with “pressure” to deliver. “Alternatively, though, they are still going to be under commercial pressure because everybody is—welcome to life in the private sector.”
“It will be really interesting to see whether they can kind of craft a niche for themselves in an incredibly competitive industry—one of the most competitive industries on the planet—while rebuilding their brand,” he concluded.
‘Heart of Invictus’ from Archewell Productions premieres on Netflix in summer 2023
As Harry and Meghan move away from so-called “look back projects,” they have a TV show coming soon. Heart of Invictus, a docuseries about competitors in the Invictus Games, founded by Harry in 2012, hits Netflix in the summer of 2023.
Billed as a multi-episode series by Netflix, it follows “a group of extraordinary competitors from around the globe, all service members who have suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses on their road to the Invictus Games The Hague 2020.”
Harry and Meghan were seen with a camera crew at the 2020 Invictus Games in The Hague, the Netherlands, which were postponed until April 2022 due to coronavirus (COVID-19). Not only will Heart of Invictus follow competitors it will also offer a look at how organizers put the games together.
After Heart of Invictus premieres, the latest games, held in Düsseldorf, Germany, will get underway in September 2023.
