Robert Schwartzman played Michael in the first film, while Chris Pine played Nicholas in the sequel
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Who will win Mia Thermopolis’ heart? It’s kind of a complicated question.
In October 2024, fans learned The Princess Diaries 3 is officially happening, and Anne Hathaway, 41, will be back to play Mia, formerly the Princess and now Queen of Genovia. But in the days since the film’s announcement, fans have been torn between two competing camps: Team Michael and Team Nicholas.
The Princess Diaries films are based on the book series of the same name by Meg Cabot. The first film, released in 2001, hews most closely to the source material and follows Hathaway’s Mia as she balances her high school life with the realization she’s a princess. Julie Andrews stars as her grandmother, Princess Clarice. Heather Matarazzo plays Mia’s best friend Lilly Moscovitz and Robert Schwartzman plays Lily’s brother Michael, whom Mia ends up with at the end of the film in a delightfully foot-popping scene.
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But in the sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement, Michael is absent and Mia tells viewers they’re still friends. Instead, Mia’s main love interest is Nicholas Devereaux, played by Chris Pine in his breakout role. They also ended the film together, though they did not tie the knot.
In Cabot’s novels, Nicholas does not exist, and Mia ends up married to Michael. So The Princess Diaries 3 is at a crossroads: should it bring back Pine, 44, to play Nicholas and continue the sequel’s plot, or bring back Schwartzman, 41, to keep the storyline close to the books?
Team Michael and Team Nicholas have been fighting it out online since the movie was confirmed last week.
“I’m going to be so real with you all … if Robert Schwartzman is not back as Michael Moscovitz and he and Mia aren’t living their best nerdy life together as soulmates then I DO NOT WANT IT,” one passionate fan wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). Another user wrote, “I have not waited 20 years for princess diaries 3 to happen just so Mia and Michael don’t end up together, make it happen @disney.”
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Team Nicholas fans were just as passionate. “Whoever is writing this PLEASE have Mia and Nicholas living happily ever after,” one person posted after learning the third film was confirmed. Another wrote, “if chris pine isn’t in princess diaries 3 i will never recover from the disappointment.”
As for the two actors, both have expressed interest in returning. Pine said in an Oct. 8 interview on Today with Hoda & Jenna that he doesn’t know if he’ll be back. “I don’t know anything,” he told hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager. Both hosts — clearly members of Team Nicholas — expressed their surprise.
“Call Disney. Call [Disney CEO] Bob Iger,” Pine directed fans. “The answer is honestly I don’t know anything about it.” He added that he thought the news itself, however, was “fantastic.”
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Meanwhile, Schwartzman told Variety in 2022 that he would be happy to return for another movie. “People have asked me, like, ‘Would you do another one, if they brought it back? Or they brought that story back?’ Of course, if the producers and the studio felt that that story is going to live on with the same actors,” he said. He noted that it would be different without director Garry Marshall, who helmed both movies and died in 2016.
Schwartzman also told the outlet that he initially learned he wouldn’t be in the sequel while on tour with his band, Rooney. Still, he was happy to have been part of the first one. “How cool is it to just be able to have been a part of a movie that really had an impact and still is out in the world?” he said. “That character and that love interest and relationship had an impact on audiences. And I think that’s awesome.”
Schwartzman, whose brother is actor Jason Schwartzman and mom is actress Talia Shire, took very few acting roles after The Princess Diaries, and has focused on directing. He helmed 2023’s The Good Half.
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The Princess Diaries 3 will be directed by Adele Lim, who called herself “a die-hard fan of the original Princess Diaries” when speaking to Variety on Oct. 4.
So far, Hathaway is the only confirmed cast member. She told PEOPLE in 2023 that it was “thrilling” to “see the level of excitement” fans had for a third film, which at the time was in development.
“We feel the exact same, and I know it’s probably very frustrating,” she said of the two-decade wait for the sequel. “It’s a process that requires patience, and so everybody should consider themselves a part of the movie business now, because this is how long it actually takes to make things.”
Andrews, 89, told Access Hollywood in 2022 that she likely would not return for a third film. “I think we know that it’s probably not going to be possible,” she explained. “It was talked about very shortly after [the second sequel] came out, but it’s now how many years since then? And I am that much older and Annie the princess, or queen, is so much older. And I am not sure where it would float or run.”