As large sections of Los Angeles continue to burn, Netflix looks set to plow ahead with the launch of Meghan Markle’s new cooking and home-making show on Wednesday.
Hollywood’s guiding principle tends to be that the show must go on, and the fires should be significantly contained in coming days (although some events including the Oscar nominations, the Critics Choice Awards, and a raft of premieres have already been either postponed or cancelled).
That said, what works for Netflix might not be great for Meghan; floating through your Montecito garden swaddled in cashmere and linen collecting wild berries in the sunshine while the smoke from L.A. wildfires is clogging your viewers’ lungs isn’t the best look.
So few could blame Meghan, often criticized for being out of touch, if she feared it might not be exactly the right moment to release a ton of aspirational footage of her whipping up cookies and cake with her celebrity friends.
Meghan seems well aware of the jeopardy, and over the weekend made a high-profile trip to a center helping victims of the fire, where she handed out food and supplies to affected families. Meghan’s new social media account, however, has remained focused on promoting her glossy new show with a call to action to help victims of the fire published on their less high-profile personal website.
Meghan and Harry’s team have declined to comment and Netflix has not responded to queries from The Daily Beast about whether the show is going to be delayed.
One Hollywood executive told The Daily Beast that the decision would be entirely down to Netflix, with Harry, Meghan and their production company Archewell having “zero influence” on scheduling.
They said, “Netflix write the rules. It’s their world, we just get to play in it.”
The source added that the new series didn’t seem to be top of anyone’s agenda even before the fires, which meant Netflix would be unlikely to disrupt their carefully planned release schedule, even though, as they said: “A moment where people’s homes are literally burning down in L.A. is not the ideal moment to release an aspirational homemaking show set just up the road.”
The stakes are high for the couple after a string of failures, including a five-part documentary about polo, amid reports executives at Netflix are “exhausted” by working with Meghan. Her jam and homeware brand, American Riviera Orchard, soft-launched with great fanfare last year, remains obstinately absent from shelves.
Netflix has reportedly bought the rights to hit novel, Meet Me At The Lake, for Archewell to develop but the project has yet to enter production.
Tony Case, a marketing expert and writer, previously told The Daily Beast: “Harry and Meghan are box office poison. From a brand perspective, I’m not really sure anything can be done at this point to reverse consumers’ obvious apathy toward the Sussexes. They set out to conquer America, but nobody here, it turned out, found them or what they’re peddling to be particularly compelling.”
Digital consultants told The Daily Beast that Meghan could turn to social media influencing to make money if the TV career doesn’t work out. Gary Frayter, a social media director at Kronus Communications, last week told The Daily Beast: “Meghan could easily pull in $100k per post, minimum. The same goes for Harry.”
