PR disasters thread 27

[BigWillyLittleTodger]

A shiny new thread to continue the chat on the Sussexes summer shenanigans!

Everything Archewell has been involved in has flopped thought hasn't ( with of course the notable exception of the Harry and Meghan docuseries. )

Just see a clip from her promoting Cookie Queens. She said her superpower is being a mom

It certainly wouldn't be my thing. Only certain cinemas showing it. I don't think any stream has taken it up. NF said no

🤮🤮

And it sounds a very Netflix thing to show -

There are just some statements that beg to followed with the words "Silly cow".

HaM's role in producing Cookie Queens was well covered by UK media...a market where the movie was NOT being shown.

HaM picked up the project at a festival when it had already been filmed and was looking for distribution deals. But HaM have earned a negative reputation in the entertainment industry, so lacked the social capital to facilitate distribution deals.

Even worse, HaM have very limited media coverage in USA outside paid-for media such as People. HaM are covered by USA mainstream media about as well as the UK media covers Infanta Sofia so having HaM as producers failed to generate any USA audience interest in watching Cookie Queens.

Well it doesn't look like being an Executive Producer is one

Oooops! Feel sorry for the Girl Scouts though. https://pagesix.com/2026/08/10/hollywood/fresh-blow-to-harry-and-meghan-as-their-girl-scout-cookie-doc-crumbles-is-beaten-by-compilation-of-cat-videos-at-box-office/

I couldn't agree more with everything you have typed.

William has all the traits of a wonderful gentleman. Diana would be proud.

One of 11 or 12 executive producers apparently

I feel sorry for all involved but they shouldn't have let HAM anywhere near this project

Does anyone know if M&H actually put any money into CQ or were they on some sort of % of profits for publicity and distribution.?

Nobody knows @BasiliskStare! Reddit suggests it may be something like £5,000-£10,000.

But after careful research (ChatGPT ;)) I couldn’t find anything.

£5k is f all in movie production costs.

The weird thing is that M doesn’t seem to understand that the film is about the commercial exploitation of children’s natural love of competition dressed us as wholesome Americana. And no-one seems to have corrected her.

Hence M talks drivel and no-one wants to watch it.

I read they did do some acting together when younger and now both have the same agent. But who knows for sure.

Is there an opposite idiom to the 'Midas touch'?

And not one of those producers, according to the article, thought to suggest that maybe the film was being released at the wrong time? Vanity titles apparently.

The US was the only market for this but I do wonder why it was released in cinemas rather than on tv.

Even their name, the massive free publicity and the junkets she did promoting it, is not enough to bring in the pundits. Seems that having them promoting anything is a death knell.

Sadim?
Merdem?

I haven’t been able to ascertain whether Cookie Queens is a gushy piece about enterprising girl scouts striving for success, an exposé on the cut throat and commercial nature of the exercise (which I would find a lot more interesting) or something else.

The idea of encouraging children to resell commercially produced UPFs in volume is bewildering to me.

What is the actual purpose of this film?

I have only seen the Meghan promos and she seemed to be pushing the ‘enterprising Girl Scouts’ line, it was only here I read it was more about the exploitation and competitiveness of the Girl Scouts in selling these cookies.

If it was positive for the Girl Scouts, every Girl Scout troop would have been lining up to buy tickets to watch it, and by all accounts that doesn’t appear to have happened.

It sounds as though Megan's response to the film is much like, I imagine, Donald Trump's would be: fantastic girls striving for success, the living embodiment of the American dream.
Whereas the most of us would watch it with an eyebrow raising to the heavens.

You would wonder if Meghan went against the writer and producer to push a happy clappy version of the film, to tie in with her own feminist girl power, founder pretend persona, rather than the original idea for the documentary.