Today, Wednesday, Netflix announced that Heart of Invictus will debut on August 30. The trailer for the series also premiered, showing footage of previous Invictus Games featuring in-depth interviews with Prince Harry and the inspiring athletes.
The docuseries follows competitors as they prepare for the 2020 Invictus Games in The Hague, the Netherlands, which was delayed until April 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The update comes after the streamer revealed in January that Heart of Invictus would hit queues in summer 2023.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, founded the international adaptive sports competition for injured, sick and wounded service personnel and veterans in 2014.
He was inspired to launch the Paralympic-style sports tournament after attending the 2013 Warrior Games in the U.S., amplifying the transformative physical, psychological and social powers of sports for those who have served.
Heart of Invictus was first announced by Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Productions in April 2021.
The production hub of their larger Archewell organization said the multi-episode show would “spotlight a group of extraordinary Invictus Games competitors from around the globe” as they prepared for the tournament at The Hague, which was delayed from its original 2020 date due to the COVID pandemic.
The release added that “the Duke will appear on camera and serve as Executive Producer on the series,” and that the Invictus Games Foundation would also act as an executive producer on the project. Director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara, an Oscar-winning team, were announced at its helm.
“Since the very first Invictus Games back in 2014, we knew that each competitor would contribute in their own exceptional way to a mosaic of resilience, determination, and resolve. This series will give communities around the world a window into the moving and uplifting stories of these competitors on their path to the Netherlands next year,” Prince Harry said in the statement.
“As Archewell Productions’ first series with Netflix, in partnership with The Invictus Games Foundation, I couldn’t be more excited for the journey ahead or prouder of the Invictus community for continuously inspiring global healing, human potential and continued service,” he added.
At the time, Netflix released a similar statement along with two photos of the Duke of Sussex chatting with competitors at the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia. Cameras also followed the Harry and Meghan at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands last April.
The Heart of Invictus release date news arrives ahead of the 2023 Invictus Games in Düsseldorf, Germany. The 2023 Invictus Games mark the tournament’s sixth cycle, following games in London (2014), Orlando (2016), Toronto (2017), Sydney (2018) and The Hague (2022).
In 2025, the Invictus Games will return to North America and take place in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
Heart of Invictus was the first Netflix series announced by Archewell Productions. Harry & Meghan, the series that chronicled their love story and step back as senior members of the royal family, was their first project to debut in December 2022.
The six-episode series smashed viewership records and had Netflix’s biggest documentary debut week in the history of the streaming service. The first three episodes of Harry & Meghan logged 81.55 million viewing hours after its debut, Netflix said in a statement in December.
The streaming giant also reported that more than 28 million households watched at least part of the series.
“This is when a family and a family business are in direct conflict,” Meghan said in one snippet, referencing the royal family.
“Everything that’s happened to us was always gonna happen to us,” Harry added.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex first signed a multi-year deal with Netflix in September 2020.
At the time, The New York Times reported that the California couple’s production hub (later named Archewell Productions) would exclusively create documentaries, docuseries, feature films, scripted shows and children’s programming for the popular platform.
