Red, White & Royal Blue was one of 2023's biggest surprise hits. Based on Casey McQuiston's popular (and BookTok-beloved) queer romance novel of the same name, the Prime Video rom-com tells the love story of Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), son of the first female U.S. President, and Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) of the United Kingdom. After the two total opposites are forced to fake a friendship following an international incident involving a royal wedding cake, they fall for each other and must keep their romance a secret.
RWRB made its streaming debut on August 11, 2023, and immediately became one of Prime Video's most-watched original rom-coms, per Deadline. It also took over social media, with countless film fans joining the fervent RWRB novel's fanbase in calling for a continuation of the couple's story. So could there be a Red, White & Royal Blue sequel? Read on for everything we know so far about the possible future film.
Has a 'Red, White & Royal Blue' sequel been announced?
Amazon MGM Studios has confirmed that Red, White & Royal Blue 2 is happening! The film's team dropped the news at a fan screening in Culver City, California on May 9, 2024, which stars Galitzine and Perez attended. According to Deadline, the two leads will reprise their roles, and Matthew López, who directed the original film, will also return to write the screenplay, alongside book author McQuiston.
Speaking with Teen Vogue in August 2023, López teased that he was open to continuing Alex and Henry's love story, saying, "I would love to do a sequel—if we have the right story."
He continued, "I think there has to be a better reason than simply the desire to make one. There has to be a compelling story reason. I don't think a sequel is a bad idea, but I don't think a sequel for the sake of doing a sequel is necessarily sufficient. What I will say is the movie is 72 hours old. Before I can start thinking of sequels, I’m still trying to understand the impact this movie has had on the world. And I'm incredibly grateful that it has been received with so much love and warmth and enthusiasm."
Based on his past comments, he and McQuiston must have a compelling continuation of Alex and Henry's romance in store!
What will the 'Red, White & Royal Blue' sequel be about?
The film ends with a sweet happily-ever-after scene taken directly from the book. After Henry and Alex go public with their relationship on the night President Claremont wins re-election, Alex gives Henry a tour of his childhood home in Austin, Texas. The ending only hints at the couple's future domestic bliss, but fans can find an official peek at the pair's life after the film's events if they look at a special version of the book.
Red, White & Royal Blue: Collector's Edition, which was released in 2022 three years after the original was published in 2019, includes an exclusive chapter set after the events from the novel told through Henry's point of view. (Alex narrates the rest of the book.)
In the special chapter, Alex and Henry move to Brooklyn after traveling for a few months. The two briefly live in separate apartments and then move into a brownstone together. Alex goes to law school and Henry starts a nonprofit and gets into cooking, while also traveling to royal engagements in London. They get engaged(!) and eventually plan to move to Austin, where they can have a quieter life away from the paparazzi.
If RWRB 2 covers the same storyline, the film could follow the couple as Alex pursues his political aspirations, and he and Henry handle the pressures of returning to the public eye. The film's versions of Alex and Henry are also older than the book version (Alex is already attending law school in the movie), so his first campaign could happen sooner than a time jump of just several years.
It would also be interesting to see the aftermath of the balcony scene and how Henry's duties as a senior royal would change as the first openly gay member of the Royal Family. There's certainly a lot more of Alex and Henry's life together that could be explored.
When will the 'Red, White & Royal Blue' sequel be released?
With the project just officially announced, it's unclear when the sequel to Red, White & Royal Blue will premiere on streaming. According to IMDb, it looks like Galitzine and Zakhar Perez's schedules are relatively free in the coming months, so the rom-com follow-up may be what they're both set to work on next.
Given how rom-coms tend to be lower-lift productions, once López and McQuiston finish up the screenplay, we suspect it won't be too long until the next chapter in this love story hits our screens—potentially even late 2025.
Will there be another 'Red, White & Royal Blue' book?
Since the novel was released in May 2019, author Casey McQuiston, who uses they/them pronouns, has hinted that Alex and Henry's story could continue in a new installment. In a September 2019 interview with Hello!, they said, "I will say that I have plenty of ideas for stories set in this world and would love a chance to explore one of them someday. I would be surprised if you've seen the last of Alex and Henry."
In the meantime, movie fans can check out the novel to spend more time with the RWRB characters.
McQuiston has also written other books: One Last Stop is an NYC-based queer romance about a love that literally transcends time, while I Kissed Sara Wheeler is a YA rom-com about high school girls growing up queer in a Christian school in the South. Their latest romance, The Pairing, comes out on August 6, 2024.
