Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's initial £75 million ($100 million) Netflix deal has been branded by insiders as an "expensive failure" for the streaming giant.

With executives reportedly disgruntled over the Duke of Sussex's memoir Spare compromising the uniqueness of their documentary series.

The Sussexes are "over the moon" with a newly inked multi-year agreement with Netflix, sources told the Daily Mail, but the revised contract is worth much less than the couple's 2020 deal.

The arrangement has been termed a "downgrade" to a "first-look" agreement by industry observers, offering Netflix the right but not the requirement to approve future productions.

Archewell Productions was supposed to produce "inspirational family programming" in various formats by the couple, but within five years produced no children's TV shows, films, or scripted programs.

The animated series Pearl was canceled in 2022, and the intended adaptation of Meet Me At The Lake is still without a director or cast two years on from its announcement.

Three insiders at Netflix revealed to The New York Times that the tension grew up when the streamer discovered only months before that Spare was coming out in January 2023 — just after the December 2022 launch of the couple's Harry & Meghan docu-series.

Executives believed that the memoir was repeating similar content, "undercutting the exclusive nature of the show."

PR expert Mark Borkowski explained to the Daily Mail that the new contract indicates Netflix is steering clear of its original big-budget pledge.

"it's a downgrade. Netflix are not going to expose themselves to those budgets again," he predicted, anticipating a pay-per-project deal well below the quoted $100 million of the first contract.

Future Netflix programming from the Sussexes includes season two of Meghan's lifestyle show With Love, Meghan, a Christmas special for December, and a documentary about Uganda's Masaka Kids dance troupe. Other productions are in the works.

Netflix and Archewell have dismissed reports of a reported strain between them as "false."

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle