Red, White & Royal Blue is coming red, white & royal back for seconds
The regal romance starring Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar Perez is getting a sequel from Prime Video
Just in time for another miserable election cycle, Amazon has arrived with a healthy slice of escapism. Yeah, we know that’s an oxymoron, but be honest—wouldn’t you rather check in on a White House run by Uma Thurman and her god-awful Southern accent than whatever we end up with in November? This writer certainly would.
If you’re in the same boat, you’ll soon have that chance. At a panel on Thursday, Red, White & Royal Blue director Matthew López and original author Casey McQuiston announced that the smash-hit 2023 film was officially getting a sequel. While McQuiston isn’t planning on penning another novel as a follow-up to the 2019 best-seller on which the film is based, they are currently collaborating with López on the sequel’s screenplay.
@entertainment_weekly Fancy another slice? ‘Red, White and Royal Blue’ is officially getting a sequel! 🇺🇸🇬🇧❤️ #RWRBMovie #TaylorZakharPerez #NicholasGalitzine #UmaThurman #RWRBSequel
Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine (fresh off of The Idea Of You, also on Prime) are also set to reprise their roles as Alex and Henry, the son of newly re-elected President Claremont (Thurman) and the Prince of England respectively. Over the course of the first film, Alex and Henry go from nemeses to friends to lovers, as they find out they have a lot more in common than they initially thought, being the children of rulers and all. When we last checked in on the couple, they were coming down from making waves across both continents as their long-hidden relationship finally went public.
But while plot details for the sequel are currently under wraps, the original’s ending did leave room for the writers to explore. Henry had just defied the literal King Of England to greet his supporters, hand-in-hand with the man he loved. President Claremont only narrowly beat her conservative opponent in the election. Alex and Henry have never explored what it means to be a gay couple in the public eye in such an extreme way. There’s a lot of potential there.
In both the original novel and movie, Alex and Henry use the line “history, huh?” to process the impact they’re making on the world. In a way, the film—which debuted last August as the top-watched film on Amazon within its first three weeks of release (via Deadline)—did the same. “To have another one of those films like this that had such a great response, and in countries where it’s quite literally illegal to be queer in these countries, it was No. 1 on Amazon,” Perez said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly’s “The Awardist” podcast. “So you know that throughout the world, where there’s eight billion people, there’s eight percent of them identify as LGBTQIA+, that’s 640 million people that are watching this. Hopefully. You would love to affect that many people… I think it’s just as important for those a part of the community and those that are not part of the community to watch this project and just learn something, enjoy it, laugh.”