For Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, “Cookie Queens” appeared to have many of the ingredients needed for a Hollywood comeback.

The documentary had generated attention at Sundance. Critics responded enthusiastically. It entered its opening weekend with an impressive 94% Rotten Tomatoes score. Even someone involved with the project had positive things to say about working with Meghan.

Then audiences went to the movies—and the numbers told a very different story.

According to a report published by Page Six, “Cookie Queens,” which marked Harry and Meghan’s theatrical feature debut as executive producers, earned just $327,797 from 446 screens during its opening weekend. Boxoffice Pro placed it at No. 15, with an average of only $735 per screen.

Perhaps the most attention-grabbing comparison was what finished five positions above it: “CatVideoFest 2026,” a 70-minute theatrical compilation of popular internet cat videos.

IMDb’s Box Office Mojo offered a slightly different ranking, placing “Cookie Queens” at No. 13, although its chart did not report figures for two Indian films included in the other ranking.

Either way, the central problem remained unchanged.

A critically well-received documentary had failed to translate positive attention into strong ticket sales.

This Was Not a Movie Critics Hated

That distinction matters.

“Cookie Queens,” directed by Alysa Nahmias, follows an intense Girl Scout Cookie season. The documentary arrived with the kind of critical reception that many independent films would welcome.

Its Rotten Tomatoes rating stood at 94% going into the weekend.

The Hollywood Reporter described it as “an eminently accessible and easily meme-able serving of American-girl cuteness,” while also highlighting its diverse group of young subjects.

The film had already generated buzz with its Sundance debut in January.

There was therefore an unusual disconnect: the problem was not an obvious critical rejection.

People who reviewed the film largely liked it. The difficulty was convincing enough people to buy tickets.

And that raises a much more complicated question about what actually went wrong.

One Expert Points to the Calendar

Senior media analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations identified a problem that had little to do with Harry or Meghan personally.

Timing.

Bock argued that indie distributor Roadside Attractions made a questionable decision by releasing the documentary during the summer corridor rather than when Girl Scout Cookies were already part of the national conversation.

“The documentary probably should have been released at the height of Girl Scout cookie season,” he said.

His explanation was simple: “For a small documentary, timing is marketing.”

A film centered on Girl Scout Cookie season already has a natural promotional window. During that period, the cookies and the young people selling them are visible in communities and conversations across the country.

According to Bock, “Cookie Queens” missed that window and therefore lost an opportunity to transform familiarity and curiosity into ticket sales.

“Guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles,” he added.

The numbers make the challenge particularly stark.

Page Six compared “Cookie Queens” with the 2003 documentary “Spellbound,” a similarly competition-focused film following eight children attempting to reach the National Spelling Bee.

“Spellbound” opened with a per-screen average of $17,508 and eventually earned $7,457,710 during its theatrical run.

“Cookie Queens,” by comparison, averaged $735 per screen during its opening weekend.

But Harry and Meghan Have a Bigger Hollywood Problem

The weak opening becomes more significant when placed alongside Archewell Productions’ recent history.

Harry and Meghan’s six-episode “Harry & Meghan” docuseries became the banner’s major success after the couple negotiated a reported $100 million Netflix agreement in 2020.

But subsequent projects have struggled to generate comparable audience interest.

Page Six pointed to “Polo” and Meghan’s highly publicized “With Love, Meghan” as projects that failed to connect in the same way.

“With Love, Meghan,” which was also used to promote products from Meghan’s As Ever brand, was not picked up for a third season amid falling ratings. Netflix also reportedly backed away from As Ever earlier in 2026, while its relationship with the Sussexes shifted to a looser first-look arrangement the previous summer.

Variety had offered an especially harsh assessment in March, writing that “the Sussexes’ perceived pattern of selling repackaged versions of the same story about their exit from royal life has exhausted Netflix.”

Their Spotify partnership also ended much earlier.

Harry and Meghan had signed a reported $25 million deal with the company, but the two sides “mutually agreed to part ways” in 2023 after the arrangement produced only one 12-episode season of Meghan’s “Archetypes” podcast.

Against that background, “Cookie Queens” carried significance beyond one documentary.

The Project That Was Supposed to Change the Narrative

At Sundance in January, expectations surrounding the film were already unusually high.

One source said, “Clearly there’s a lot riding on this documentary.”

The same source went considerably further, describing it as potentially “their last chance at redemption” and suggesting that the Sussexes’ entire Hollywood experiment hung in the balance.

That makes the opening weekend particularly disappointing.

Yet there is another side to the story.

One person involved with “Cookie Queens” offered a positive account of Meghan personally.

“I have to say I really do like her,” the source said, adding, “I haven’t met Harry, but she has been good to work with.”

That distinction is important. Whatever problems exist with Archewell’s ability to consistently attract audiences, the account does not suggest Meghan herself was difficult behind the scenes.

Instead, “Cookie Queens” exposes a different problem.

Harry and Meghan helped executive produce a documentary that critics liked, that arrived with Sundance buzz and that received positive comments from someone who worked with Meghan.

And it still opened weakly.

Being beaten by “CatVideoFest 2026” makes for an irresistible headline. But the more consequential issue is what comes afterward.

If “Cookie Queens” really was expected to help reverse Harry and Meghan’s Hollywood fortunes, its opening weekend has made that challenge considerably harder. The film may have had the reviews, the festival attention and a feel-good premise—but once again, the Sussexes are confronting the one thing Hollywood ultimately demands: an audience.