Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are said to be considering signing a new deal with Paramount, with their Netflix contract set to expire in 2025 and no confirmation yet of whether it will be renewed.
Their alleged courting of Paramount has been accused of being “unsubtle” by royal expert Angela Levin after the Sussexes were pictured posing with Paramount CEO Brian Robbins and his wife Tracy James on the red carpet at the premiere of the new Bob Marley biopic.
The Duke and Duchess are reportedly friends with Mr Robbins and Ms James and flew to Jamaica at his invitation, staying at a luxury resort in Montego Bay.
Ms Levin said Harry and Meghan may be “brutal” in their negotiations, as she told The Sun: “What they’re showing is they are not being loyal to Netflix because they’re still signed up to Netflix.
“They haven’t been loyal to the Royal Family, they’ve been brutal and that’s family. If they want to move to Paramount they shouldn’t have had this type of exposure, it’s very unsubtle.”
“With the Netflix contract coming to an end in 2025, undoubtedly this is the message it sends. What can they offer Paramount? They’re not doing anything substantial that we know.”
There have been rumours that Netflix are not looking to renew their contract with Archewell Productions, which was set up by Harry and Meghan in 2020 to create “programming that informs, elevates, and inspires”.
So far they have produced Harry & Meghan, Heart of Invictus and Live to Lead, which have had a mixed response, and although other projects and adaptations are thought to be in the pipeline no other releases have been confirmed.
It would be a bitter blow for the Duke and Duchess to lose out with Netflix after they parted ways with Spotify last summer after producing just one series of Meghan’s Archetypes podcast together.
Meanwhile, Archewell Productions manager Bennett Levine has this week stepped away from his role at the company, the 17th member of staff to leave the couple since they married in 2018.
In a statement on social media he wrote: “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position at Cinetic Media.”
Mr Fitzwilliams concluded: “But you shouldn’t write them [Harry and Meghan] off because they’re unpredictable, they love surprising.”
