Anne Hathaway says The Princess Diaries 3 is 'in a good place' and moving forward

Alright, so we’re living through the age of legacy sequels, and by 'legacy' I mean studios dragging out properties that maybe, just maybe, don’t actually need reviving—but here we are. Anne Hathaway’s been caught right in the middle of it all, riding a hot streak in 2026 with a box office bulldozer that raked in $666 million on a $100 million budget. Naturally, everyone’s been wondering which of her classics gets the resurrection treatment next. If you guessed Genovia, congratulations, you’re already ahead.

A Return to Genovia? Sort of, Maybe, Eventually

Disney went and announced a third Princess Diaries film back in 2024, with Adele Lim (who did Joy Ride) on directing duties and Flora Greeson writing the script. Hathaway herself posted confirmation—well, as much as TikTok will allow—which went viral at the speed of light. But that’s where the clarity vanishes. Two years running and there’s no release date, no cameras rolling, and zero official green light. That’s not usually a great sign.

What’s the Hold-up?

Hathaway finally gave a halfway-clear update this week on Andy Cohen’s show (Deadline relayed the blow-by-blow, if you want to check the receipts). Asked straight-up where the sequel stands, Hathaway sidestepped for a second to announce she is, in her words, busy on ‘baby number three’—and yes, she literally flashed the baby bump. The new arrival’s put a very real question mark over when she’ll even be able to film next.

If you’re wondering when that pregnancy news dropped, that came out on her Instagram on 19 June. She’d apparently been keeping it under wraps all through her high-profile junkets in April and May. Even before the baby news, scheduling was a headache, with Mother Mary and The Odyssey landing this year and yet another—The End of Oak Street—lined up for August.

A Script Reinvented, for Better or Worse

Now, here’s the real meat: Hathaway said the script that everyone assumed was locked is now in the bin. They’ve decided to start from scratch, heading off in a completely new direction. Not what anyone wanted to hear, obviously, but she put a positive spin on it for Cohen:

'I can say I think we had a story breakthrough. I think we are moving in the right direction. The script that we were working on—we kind of had to start over with this new direction, which is not the update I think anybody wants, but we all feel really good that this is gonna be the one.'

If you feel like this is déjà vu, you’re not alone. Hathaway told fans a script was finished back in 2019. In April just gone, she said the team was still hacking away at it, pointing out the film wasn’t officially greenlit. Meg Cabot (who wrote the original books) claimed she’d read a draft in April and teased there was ‘a part in it for everybody’—a bit awkward now that the current version is history.

Who’s Actually in This Thing?

• Chris Pine, who played Nicholas Devereaux, claims he’d come back but no one’s called him
• Sandra Oh has been asked, hasn’t committed one way or the other
• Julie Andrews has spent years, politely, saying she thinks the franchise had its moment and maybe that was enough

For the accountants: the first Princess Diaries made $165 million off a $26 million budget. Disney obviously hasn’t forgotten that little slice of maths, but, as of now, they've yet to throw even a provisional date on the calendar.