‘Never heard of it’: King Charles snubs Prince Harry with Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds
The King kept calm and carried on with Ryan Reynolds, enlisting a bigger box office draw for a Disney+ docuseries after Harry & Meghan $150m Netflix “flop-umentary”.
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King Charles is keeping busy.
As Prince Harry and former sitcom actor Meghan Markle failed to crack the Netflix top 10 with their USD $100m ($AUD $150) Royal Family break-up letter, King Charles III joked around with Hollywood icon Ryan Reynolds.
The King and Queen Camilla walked the grounds of the Wrexham Association Football Club with the Deadpool actor and a move seen by Royal observers as a display of the Monarchy’s star power following the release of Harry & Meghan.
It is believed the meeting could be part of the new Disney+ docuseries, Welcome to Wrexham, chronicling the purchase of the football club by Reynolds and Robert McElhenney III, star of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Asked if they’d watched Prince Harry and Meghan’s Netflix series, McElhenney dropped the stinger: “I’ve never heard of it.”
With Buckingham Palace remaining characteristically tight-lipped about allegations in the series, the Monarchy’s response is left to anonymous leaks in the press and the timing and content of the King and Queen’s official duties.
Before meeting the King, Reynolds told the media they were “impossibly excited” to welcome the British sovereign to Wrexham.
“Rob and I both said early on, and this holds true and for the rest of our lives, we will do anything to uplift and elevate this community and this club and having the King pay a visit is certainly one way to do it. That’s for sure. Very excited,” Reynolds said, according to PA.
Reynolds, avoiding a “conflict of interest” by not offering a gift of Aviation Gin that competes with the Royal gin launched by the Queen in 2020, said he would talk about the work to improve the club and stadium.
“It’s not even a renovation, I would say that it’s a complete reim of the Kop stand, and what that will mean to not just the club, but the community of Wrexham as well,” Reynolds said.
The first season of the Welcome to Wrexham series finished on October 12, with the second season of the series currently filming for future release.
If the King’s meeting appears in the show, it will strike a markedly different tone than the first three episodes of his son’s program on Netflix.
While Netflix has not released the ratings for Volume I of Harry & Meghan in the US, the series was beaten out of the top 10 in the United States by shows like Love Island, Too Hot to Handle, The Addams Family and The Crown.
US media reviews slammed the series, with the Wall Street Journal calling it “A Royal Pity Party” and the New York Post labelling it “a hypocritical attention grab”.
The review in the entertainment industry’s top publication, Variety, was surprised by “just how narrow their vision of their fame is, how pinched and unimaginative their presence on the world has become”.
“As part of their Netflix deal, Harry and Meghan have been seemingly forced into restaging the story of their courtship, wedding, and family feuds past the point that they, or anyone but diehard fans or haters, can still care,” Variety’s says.
“Pity them, too — even after breaking free of Buckingham Palace, they’re still someone’s subjects.”
The Hollywood Reporter said the series “takes a lot of time to reveal very little”, while IndieWire called it a “dull diary entry, not a documentary”
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In the United Kingdom, the BBC reported the first episode was seen by 2.4 million people, with ratings dropping to 1.5 million for the second and falling again to 800,000 for the third.
Prince Harry and Ms Markle were reportedly been warned their huge Netflix deal will be in jeopardy if their shows flop.
The couple was advised there are “no guarantees” Netflix would green light any of their future productions and the contract could be cancelled with a greatly reduced “kill fee”, a Netflix LA-based consultant told the US Sun:
Ms Markle’s animated series Pearl, the story of a 12-year-old girl exploring the lives of women throughout history, was cut by Netflix amid a collapse in subscribers, according to Deadline.
Royal commentator Neil Sean said the couple’s “cost of living crisis” could be why Prince Harry temporarily halted a libel legal case against Britain’s Associated Newspapers.
“Lots of speculation around, many people claiming, allegedly, that Prince Harry has seen the astronomical figures that it could cost by pursuing this case,” he said.
“For him to put a temporary halt on this right now, many people are speculating, that even Harry could be feeling the cost of living crisis. It’s not cheap to go legal,” he added.
“More importantly for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it’s not the first time, and with their projects now very much in limbo, including the Archetypes podcast, everything resting on this docuseries, and whether the book will sell, it’s not going to be easy to sustain funds to take on such a global organisation as Associated Newspapers.”
On the same day that Prince Harry and Ms Markle released the first Netflix series, living their stated dream of being independent citizens working to make their own money, the Royal Mint released the first coins stamped with the face of King Charles.
On one side, Charles’s head faces left, looking the opposite way to the Queen per Royal tradition. The other side celebrates the life and legacy of Elizabeth, using the coin design from her coronation in 1953.
An initial release of 4.9 million of 50 pence piece coins,
featuring an effigy of King Charles III, was distributed through the UK’s post offices.
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