What do you do when you have two genres-franchises that make a lot of money? Well, when you’re Disney and you need content for your streaming services, you smash them together. And that’s how you get Disney+’s latest original movie, Secret Society of Second-Born Royals.
The basic synopsis is that Sam is a second-born princess, stuck with nothing to do since her older sister will be taking the crown. However, that doesn’t mean she’s useless. Turns out (and no, I am not kidding), second-born royals inherit a specific gene that gives them heightened abilities that they can use to protect their kingdoms.
The film stars Peyton Elizabeth Lee from the Disney show Andi Mack, Skylar Astin from Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist, Niles Fitch from This is Us, Greg Bryk from Frontier, and Elodie Yung from Daredevil. It also stars Ashley Liao, Noah Lomax, Isabella Blake-Thomas, Olivia Deeble, and Faly Rakotohavana.
“Sam is going to be a unique addition to the Disney princess family because she doesn’t want to be a princess, she doesn’t want to be royalty,” Lee tells EW on playing Sam. “Because of that, it takes her on this journey of figuring out how to make it work for herself that’s going to break that delicate princess mold. When she finds this secret society that feels the same way, they figure out how to create their own legacy and have an impact on their country and the world.”
“[Professor James Morrow] is such a fun character and provides a little levity to this otherwise fantasy action movie,” Astin tells EW. “James has the ability to multiply, so that is very convenient for teaching and combat,” the actor says. “I made sure to make certain versions of him more eager, certain ones more serious. In a fight scene there’s one that’s more aggressive. My mother is going to love this movie because there will be 20 of me.”
From a content perspective, this looks and feels like a Disney Channel Original Movie, which is not an insult. Those movies make a lot of money and tend to be very fondly remembered, whether for their genuine moments of comedy and drama or their awkward child acting. So for Disney to move this directly to streaming rather than putting it on Disney Channel could be an experiment to figure out if that audience will tune in on streaming. After all, there’s nothing in the trailer that signals that this is darker or more expensive than any of those other movies, so this could be a test with the distribution rather than the product.
Secret Society of Second-Born Royals is set to premiere in July 17, 2020.
