"They should get that girl from Suits to play her."
That's the obvious reaction to TV network Lifetime's announcement they're at work on a film about soon-to-be married royal couple, Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle.
The US network says Harry & Meghan: The Royal Love Story will follow the couple from their initial blind date through to their "courtship when they were able to keep their romance under wraps, and ultimately the intense global media attention surrounding their relationship and Meghan's life as a divorced American actress."
Directed by British-Bangladeshi filmmaker Menhaj Huda (Kidulthood, Coronation Street), the film is expected to premiere in early May, ahead of the couple's May 19 wedding.
The network, known for their low-budget, sentimental and often exploitative TV films (their most recent offering A Tale of Two Coreys, followed the scandals of Hollywood '80s teen stars Haim and Feldman), will be hoping for a more positive reaction than greeted their film William and Kate: The Movie, released just days before the couple's April 2011 wedding.
That movie, broadcast on Network Ten in Australia, earned strong ratings buoyed by media frenzy over the royal wedding, but was panned by viewers and critics, who described its wooden performances and cheesy dialogue as "pillow-bitingly ghastly" and among the "worst films ever made".
Casting for Lifetime's film is currently underway, Deadline reports, but Markle - who quit her job playing Rachel Zane on US legal drama Suits in November, following her engagement to the prince - is understandably off the cards.
Harry and Markle's wedding is expected to be among the year's most watched TV events. Over four million Australians tuned in to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton's nuptials in 2011, while the global audience was estimated around 800 million viewers.
