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Vanessa Hudgens Is Starring In A Royal Netflix Rom-Com, And Twitter Thinks It’s A Ripoff Of A Barbie Movie

By Treva Bowdoin
Published on: 23:44 PST, Jun 18, 2018

Netflix is giving Vanessa Hudgens the royal treatment in an upcoming rom-com, but some fans think that the plot for the streaming service’s original movie isn’t original enough. According to Cosmopolitan, the former Disney star recently finished filming The Princess Switch. Fans of the High School Musical actress and sappy, happy endings are already vowing to hate-watch the holiday movie, but some of them feel like they’ve seen Hudgens’ very merry fairytale story play out before.

Vanessa Hudgens recently took to Instagram to reveal that fans can look forward to watching her rock a tiara and ball gown in The Princess Switch, Netflix’s second holiday movie about a royal romance. As noted by Bustle, the first was A Christmas Prince, a Hallmark-style chick flick that became a surprise cult hit last holiday season. Hudgens seemed to get the title of that film and her own confused when she made her Instagram announcement; the 29-year-old actress melded the titles together into “The Christmas Switch,” which is a 2014 film starring Natasha Henstridge and Brian Krause.

Hudgens made up for her error by successfully helping Netflix market her movie to those who still have royal wedding fever. She didn’t mention Prince Harry and Meghan Markle by name, but her post included a nod to the royal couple’s recent nuptials.

“Did someone say a royal wedding???? that’s a wrap on THE CHRISTMAS SWITCH coming to you this holiday season on @netflix,” she wrote. “So excited for you guys to see this one.”

Netflix shared the official description of The Princess Switch on its See What’s Next Twitter account. It revealed that Hudgens will play dual roles as “a Duchess & a commoner who swap places after discovering they look exactly alike.” Both women happen to find their Prince Charmings while they’re pretending to be each other, and “things get complicated.”

One of the women’s love interests is played by Nashville star Sam Palladio. He’s pictured in Vanessa Hudgens’ Instagram post, and his character appears to be a prince. Netflix’s description of the movie doesn’t mention Christmas, but Hudgens’ reference to the holiday and the decorations in the photo that she shared seem to confirm that it’s set during the festive season. It also hasn’t been revealed whether the movie is a musical, but both of its leads can sing.

Some Twitter users were unimpressed by the movie’s description, but they confessed that they’re going to watch The Princess Switch, anyway.

Others pointed out that the movie’s plot is similar to that of past films, including the 2011 Selena Gomez flick Monte Carlo and the direct-to-DVD Barbie movie, The Princess and the Pauper. The latter is based on the classic Mark Twain story, The Prince and the Pauper. According to IMDb, the Barbie version adds a love story and a kidnapping.

“The Pauper features Barbie in an exciting dual role as a princess and a poor village girl – two girls who look amazingly alike. The girls’ paths are fated to cross when Princess Anneliese is captured and Erika, her look-alike, must try to save her,” reads the movie’s plot summary. “Can Erika pretend to be the Princess and foil her captor, the evil Preminger? And what of the handsome King Dominick, who falls in love with Erika, mistaking her for Princess Anneliese?”

The release date for The Princess Switch hasn’t been revealed yet, but fans will likely get to see just how similar it is to the Barbie flick sometime this holiday season.

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