Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Girl Scout cookie doc beaten by cats at box office
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Girl Scout cookie doc beaten by cats at box office
Hannah Furnell Mon, August 10, 2026 at 5:28 PM UTC
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Boxoffice Pro reports that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Cookie Queens earned just $735 per screen and opened five spots behind CatVideoFest 2026 (Image: Roadside Attractions)
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Girl Scout cookie documentary has been beaten at the box office by a compilation of cat videos.
'Cookie Queens' - which marked the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's theatrical feature debut as executive producers through Archewell Productions - hit theaters on August 7. Meghan and Harry's new documentary follows a group of Girl Scouts - Niki, Shannon-Elizabeth, and Olive - as they take on the cookie-selling season.
Despite Meghan revealing that the film resonated so deeply with her and Harry as parents, it failed at the box office over the weekend. This comes after a body language expert claimed that Meghan "intentionally" Princess Diana in her recent birthday post.
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According to Boxoffice Pro, Cookie Queens earned just $735 per screen and opened at No. 15, five spots behind CatVideoFest 2026, which is a 70-minute theatrical compilation of the most famous internet cat videos.
Tony - the Anthony Bourdain biopic from A24 that debuted on only six screens - also opened ahead of Cookie Queens, as did two Indian films, DC and Korean Kanakaraju.
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Meanwhile, IMDb's Box Office Mojo reported Cookie Queens at No. 13, but it didn't reveal numbers for the two Indian films.
The Alysa Nahmias-helmed documentary entered the weekend with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but the box-office numbers weren't as impressive. It earned just $327,797 from 446 screens.
Jeff Bock, senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations, told Page Six Hollywood that indie distributor Roadside Attractions made a wrong decision to release Cookie Queens during the summer corridor.
"The documentary probably should have been released at the height of Girl Scout cookie season, when the cookies, and the girls selling them, are part of the national conversation," Bock said.
"For a small documentary, timing is marketing. It missed the very window that could have made it feel relevant and turned curiosity into ticket sales. Guess that's the way the cookie crumbles."
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Archewell Productions hasn't earned success since its first and only hit, the 2023 six-episode Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which came after the couple originally negotiated a $100 million pact with the streaming giant in 2020.
Since then, they have released multiple projects under the contract, but both the Polo doc and the series With Love, Meghan have also failed.
With Love, Meghan, which was used to promote Meghan's As Ever lifestyle brand, was not picked up by Netflix for a third season amid negative ratings.
The couple's $25 million Spotify deal has also seen failure. They "mutually agreed to part ways" with the music streamer in 2023. Their $25 million deal with the company produced only one 12-episode season of Meghan's podcast, Archetypes.
Cookie Queens debuted at Sundance in January, and there was some hope for it.
The Hollywood Reporter praised it as "an eminently accessible and easily meme-able serving of American-girl cuteness, featuring a diverse cast of well-chosen young women."
Ahead of Cookie Queen's release, Meghan opened up to People about why the documentary struck both her and Harry as parents.
"When we first saw the teaser several years ago, it was just a few minutes in length and still being put together, but it was very clear that Alysa's vision as a director was capturing something special," Meghan said.
"The music, the cinematography, the honesty. It made both of us laugh out loud and also feel such emotion as parents. We knew we wanted to help uplift this project in any way we could."
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's other productions has similarly failed (Image: Getty)
The documentary follows the Girl Scouts as they navigate cookie season and gain confidence, resilience, and leadership skills.
"It's vital to show both sides because that's what makes it relatable," Meghan said of the film's deeper theme: the joys and pressures of girlhood. "Every girl, every family can see a part of themselves in one of these girls' stories."
Meghan said the documentary also resonated differently be because she's raising 5-year-old daughter, Princess Lilibet. As a mother, she found one of the film's most emotional scenes especially powerful.
"I don't want to give anything away, but there's a very special moment when one of the girls accomplishes something she never thought possible," she said. "I get misty-eyed every time I watch that scene. She did it! I feel so proud of her."
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
