Lifetime releases first photos of cast in upcoming Harry and Meghan Escaping the Palace movie

Lifetime Network has released new cast photos from their latest film about Prince Harry and Meghan.

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace will be the third film that the network have produced about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

It will feature Jordan Dean from The Punisher, and Sydney Morton from She’s Gotta Have It as the couple. 

It’s fair to say fans of the duke and duchess were generally unimpressed with the new casting (and the film in general)

One person said of Dean’s casting: “Well, they got the hair colour right. So there’s that.”

“You must be joking,” another person wrote ,when they saw the announcement.

The film will mainly focus on the couple’s decision to step down from the royal family and their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey that happened earlier this year.

During the interview, Meghan described how she had suicidal thoughts as she struggled with life inside the royal family. She said she begged for help, asked to go somewhere to get help, and approached one of the most senior people in the institution, but was told it would not look good.

She told Winfrey: “I was ashamed to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry. But I knew that if I didn’t say it — then I would do it.”

“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she added.

The couple also said in the interview that racist coverage of them in the British tabloid press and the royal family’s lack of acknowledgement to Meghan’s unfair press treatment was part of the reason why they moved to LA.

This film follows 2018’s Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance and 2019’s Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal.

The first film received a 5.6/10 rating on IMDB and CNN said the film “isn’t as deliciously awful as one might have hoped, but it’s silly and bloated enough to be entertainingly bad.”

Harry & Meghan: Becoming Royal got an IMDB rating of 4.7/10 where users described it as “sucky,” “cheesy” and “uninteresting.”

In a press release, it says the film “explores what really happened inside the palace that drove Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to leave everything behind in order to make a future for themselves and their son Archie.

“The movie will detail Meghan’s growing isolation and sadness, their disappointment that ‘The Firm’ was not defending them against the press’s attacks, and Harry’s fear that history would repeat itself and he would not be able to protect his wife and son from the same forces that may have contributed to his mother’s untimely death.”

Production began on the film in Vancouver this week and is anticipated to be released later this year, around Autumn 2021.