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Legacy sequels have had a strange couple of years, with studios reviving properties two decades old (or less) and audiences turning up in numbers nobody quite modeled for. Anne Hathaway has been at the center of that shift more than most, having spent 2026 fronting a comeback that grossed $666 million worldwide on a $100 million budget, and the obvious question since May has been which of her old roles gets resurrected next.
The answer may lie in Genovia. Disney announced a third Princess Diaries film in 2024 with Joy Ride director Adele Lim attached and a script by Flora Greeson, and Hathaway confirmed her return as Mia Thermopolis in a TikTok that racked up millions of views in a day. What has been missing since is any sense of when, and two years on, there's still no release date, no start of production, and no green light.
Speaking to Andy Cohen this week (via Deadline), Hathaway gave the clearest account yet of why that is. Asked directly where the sequel stands, she joked that she is busy making baby number three, showing the bump before conceding that the pregnancy has replaced any firm sense of when she can actually shoot the film. She announced the pregnancy, her third child with husband Adam Shulman, on Instagram on June 19, having reportedly kept it quiet through the entire international press tour in April and May. The calendar was already crowded before that, with Mother Mary and The Odyssey already landing this year and The End of Oak Street due in August.
The more consequential detail came next, and it cuts both ways. Hathaway said the version of the script the team had been developing was scrapped in favor of a new direction, which she acknowledged is not the update anyone was hoping for. She then framed it as progress rather than a setback, telling Cohen she thinks they had a "story breakthrough" and that everyone involved feels good about this being the one.
"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."
That is a familiar rhythm for this project. Hathaway told fans the script was finished back in 2019, and again in April she described the team as chipping away at it, stressing then that the film was not greenlit or confirmed. Meg Cabot, who wrote the novels, said in April that she had read a draft and that there was a part in it for everybody, which sits awkwardly alongside a start-over six months later.
Casting remains almost entirely open. Chris Pine has said he is game to return as Nicholas Devereaux without ever getting a call, Sandra Oh has been asked and has stayed noncommittal, and Julie Andrews has spent years gently suggesting the moment has passed. The original grossed $165 million against a $26 million budget, which is not the kind of math Disney forgets, though the studio has yet to put a date on the board.
