Montecito, California, 21 August (Brussles Morning Newspaper) – Harry and Meghan Hollywood ambitions began with the sort of deals most newcomers to the entertainment industry could only dream of. Six years after leaving frontline royal duties and moving to California, however, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have built a record that includes one major Netflix breakthrough, several smaller productions and a media strategy that looks markedly different from the one they started with.
The couple established Archewell Productions after their royal departure and entered agreements with Netflix and Spotify. Their names alone guaranteed attention, but turning that interest into a lasting entertainment business was always going to depend on what audiences actually watched and listened to.
Harry and Meghan scored their biggest hit by telling their story
Nothing Archewell has released has matched the immediate impact of Harry & Meghan.
The six-part documentary arrived on Netflix in December 2022 and put the Sussexes themselves at the centre of the programme. Netflix says it attracted 23.4 million views in its first four days, making it the platform’s most-viewed documentary over that opening period. It reached the English-language television Top 10 in 85 countries and remains Netflix’s fifth most popular documentary series.
That success established an important pattern. The strongest audience response came when Harry and Meghan were the story.
Archewell nevertheless attempted to build a broader slate. Its Netflix releases have included Live to Lead, Heart of Invictus, Polo and Meghan’s lifestyle series With Love, Meghan.
Meghan found another audience with lifestyle television
With Love, Meghan represented a significant change of direction.
Instead of royal life or the couple’s relationship with the media, the programme focused on cooking, entertaining and lifestyle themes. Netflix reported 5.3 million views during the first half of 2025 and said the series had become its most-watched culinary programme since its release. It also reached the Global Top 10 and the Top 10 in 24 countries.
The programme fitted into Meghan’s increasingly business-focused public profile and her development of the As ever lifestyle brand, which Netflix has also partnered with.
Her audio career followed a similar move towards entrepreneurship. After the Sussexes’ Spotify partnership ended in 2023, Meghan returned to podcasting with Lemonada Media. Confessions of a Female Founder launched in April 2025 as an eight-part series featuring conversations with women who had built businesses.
Netflix keeps the Sussexes in the entertainment business
The clearest indication that the Harry and Meghan Hollywood chapter is not over came from Netflix itself.
In August 2025, the company announced a multi-year first-look agreement with Archewell Productions covering film and television projects. The arrangement continued a relationship that began in 2020, although under a different structure from the original deal.
Meghan said she and Harry were “proud to extend our partnership with Netflix”, while Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria called them “influential voices whose stories resonate with audiences everywhere”.
Their Hollywood record is more complicated than success or failure
The numbers make sweeping verdicts difficult.
The Sussexes produced a genuine global documentary hit, maintained their Netflix relationship and expanded into lifestyle, sport and entrepreneurship. At the same time, their early ambitions have evolved considerably, particularly after the Spotify partnership ended and their Netflix relationship moved to a first-look model.
What they have not yet demonstrated is that every subject attached to the Sussex name can reproduce the extraordinary interest generated by their own story.
What happens next for Harry and Meghan?
Archewell Productions remains connected to Netflix through the multi-year agreement announced in 2025, with additional projects under development.
The next test is therefore straightforward: whether future programmes can build substantial audiences without relying primarily on public fascination with Harry and Meghan themselves. Their Hollywood experiment is still running, but after six years, it has become a more focused and less predictable business than the blockbuster ambitions that accompanied their arrival in California.
