Prince Harry's 'Heart of Invictus' May Struggle to "Attract Audience"

Invictus Games 2020 - Day 2 — (Image credit: Getty/Max Mumby/Indigo)

The trailer for Prince Harry's long-awaited docuseries Heart of Invictus has dropped this week, ahead of the show's Aug. 30 release.

While this series seems very well produced and is packed full of lots of interesting facts about the Duke of Sussex' Invictus Games, which are very close to his heart, one royal commentator is concerned that the series won't be as successful as the Sussexes' previous Netflix series, Harry & Meghan.

"This is likely to be a constructive and interesting documentary. It is, however, difficult to see it attracting a large audience," Richard Fitzwilliams told Newsweek.

"After their failure at Spotify and the inability of their previous Netflix project Live to Lead to appeal to audiences, they need good ratings, but this will also have a special cachet as it is so personal to Harry."

The royal couple's deal with Spotify ended rather abruptly this year, and Live to Lead (which is available to watch on Netflix) flew comfortably under the radar after its late December release.

"Their six-hour marathon documentary, Harry & Meghan, released last December, was Netflix's second-highest ranked documentary ever, but left them open to accusations of overexposure and hypocrisy," Fitzwilliams continued.

"Their biggest challenge is to find a crowd-pleaser that does not involve criticizing the Royal Family."

In Heart of Invictus, Harry paints a picture of why the Invictus Games are so important to him and to the contestants, who are injured, wounded or ill servicemen and women.

In the trailer, the prince says, "The Games doesn't focus on what causes the injury, but really about the recovery and how to be part of a community again."

You can watch the full preview below.

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Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.