Anne Hathaway confirms 'Princess Diaries 3': See her announcement (original) (raw)
Looks like Anne Hathaway is returning to Genovia!
Twenty years since "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" hit theaters, fans are still dying see more of Queen Mia. Now, it appears as if they will!
On Oct. 4, Hathaway confirmed that the third installment is in the works.
The video shows Hathaway lounging in a chair and holding up one finger and saying, "One." Her character Mia Thermopolis from the first film then says her iconic phrase, "A princess? Shut up!" followed by Julie Andrews' Queen Clarisse Rinaldi also saying "shut up" in the second film. Hathaway then holds up three fingers and smiles as she says, "Shut up!"
“Miracles happen ✨👑 Back to Genovia with @Disney Studios & @Somewhere Pictures. The fairy tale continues,” she captioned her TikTok.
Plot details and Andrews' involvement are unknown at this time, according to Deadline's report. "Joy Ride" director Adele Lim confirmed on Instagram she has been tapped to direct.
What is the ‘Princess Diaries’ franchise about?
The movies follow San Francisco resident Mia Thermopolis, played by Hathaway, as she learns she is actually the princess of the small kingdom of Genovia. Andrews plays her regal grandmother who has to teach the American teenager to fit in to their royal family.
In the second film, Mia gets accustomed to life as a royal and is expected to get married to able to become queen.
What has been said before about a 'Princess Diaries 3'?
TODAY.com previously went straight to the top to ask Queen Clarisse Rinaldi herself — ahem, Andrews — for the inside scoop.
“Ah, I have been asked that so many times,” Andrews said in April 2024, while chatting about the new picture book she wrote with her daughter, Emma Watson Hamilton.
“There was dialogue about it,” she said, but “nothing had been realized. And I think I may be wrong, but I think it’s been shelved now. I can’t be sure.”
At the time, Andrews didn't think the franchise would live on in some form, however: “I’m sure there will be another version on another day.”
Pausing to muse about the possibility of a third movie, Andrews said, “It’s quite a long time now since the two ‘Diaries’ were done, and I’m not sure, but sometimes it’s best to leave a good thing alone. I don’t like it when people milk and milk and milk the subject, you know, ‘til it’s dead.”
However, she added, “I’d be very happy if we did do another one. But I don’t expect to.”
Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries, 2001.Alamy
In 2019, Hathaway said there was a script for the third movie on an episode of Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live.”
She told Andy Cohen, “I want to do it. Julie (Andrews) wants to do it. Debra Martin Chase, our producer, wants to do it. We all really want it to happen.”
In 2022, Andrews told The Hollywood Reporter prior to being honored with an AFI Life Achievement Award that it was likely “too late” for a third film, especially after director Garry Marshall died in 2016.
Rosie Colosi lives in New Jersey and is a reporter for TODAY Parents. She has bylines in The Atlantic, The Week, MSNBC, and PureWow, and she has written 33 nonfiction children's books for Scholastic, Klutz, and Nat Geo Kids. Once upon a time, she played Mrs. Claus in "The Rockettes' Radio City Christmas Spectacular," but now she mostly sings songs from "Annie" to her two daughters … while they beg her to play Kidz Bop.
Liz Calvario is a Los Angeles-based reporter and editor for TODAY.com who covers entertainment, pop culture and trending news.