'Princess Diaries 3' Release Date News: Anne Hathaway Celebrates Film's 16th Year; Meg Cabot Dishes on Mia Thermopolis' Dad
It has been 16 years since "Princess Diaries" premiered in theaters. Star Anne Hathaway celebrated the movie's "birthday" in a recent social media post amid talks of a third movie.
Hathaway, who played Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genovia in the film series, posted her birthday greetings for "Princess Diaries" on Instagram. She also acknowledged director Garry Marshall, who died on July 2016 at 81 years old.
Hathaway and Marshall actively talked about doing "Princess Diaries 3" before his death. It was supposed to be the actress' comeback movie after giving birth to her firstborn child with husband Adam Schulman.
Hathaway was only in her teens when she did the Disney film that was released in 2001. Now that she's a grown woman and a mom, the actress and the director also wanted to explore her "Princess Diaries" character as an adult.
Hathaway and Marshall discussed the third installment's potential with Dame Julie Andrews, who played Mia's grandmother, Queen Clarisse. Andrews signified her intent to reunite for "Princess Diaries 3." The film's status, however, remains vague as Disney has yet to green light a third film in light of Marshall's demise.
Meanwhile, "Princess Diaries" author Meg Cabot revealed that the original movie killed off Mia's dad. The character played an important part in the book series that the films were based on but Disney decided to replace his presence with a grandmother for one good reason: the studio wanted Andrews in the film adaptation.
"We wanna make her role much bigger, and kinda raise the stakes, and give her a lot more lines, and we think we can give her a lotta the dad lines," the Disney executives told Cabot, as she related to Entertainment Weekly.
Cabot signed off on killing the dad when she found out the studio's choice.
"I think they tried to make her as horrible as they could, but it's Julie Andrews," the author said.