Red, White & Royal Blue” Director Released the Deleted “Cornetto Scene

Red, White & Royal Blue fans have been clamoring for more footage from the popular Prime Video movie released last week, and the director has obliged with one specific deleted scene.

In an Instagram post on Friday, Red, White & Royal Blue director Matthew López gave fans an extended scene that didn’t make the final cut of the movie but was featured in the bestselling novel of the same name by Casey McQuiston. It’s called the “Cornetto scene,” with Cornetto referring to the small ice cream cones popular in Europe.

“Even though NONE OF YOU were asking for it, here’s the ‘Cornetto Scene’ to celebrate the amazing first week that @rwrbonprime has had out in the world,” López wrote in the caption. “Thank you for making it #1 globally!”

The scene takes place after the cake disaster and is the first time Alex Claremont Diaz, played by Taylor Zakhar Perez, and Prince Henry, played by Nicholas Galitzine, are face-to-face with each other in a more casual setting. Alex is staying over at Kensington Palace the night before the pair are set to make press appearances regarding the incident, to prove they’re “friends.”

Henry overhears Alex telling his friend on the phone how “insufferable” he finds Henry and the prince happily interrupts to take a Cornetto ice cream cone from the fridge. The pair banter back and forth and Henry tells Alex he needs to try harder to make their friendship seem believable. In response, Alex posts a photo of both of their hands on the Cornetto box on social media and tags the prince — which instantly gets thousands of likes.

While the scene was sweet and impactful in the book — and important to diehard fans — the director said it was cut from the movie for a reason. In an interview with Teen Vogue this week, López said the scene ultimately took away from the tension between the characters and was taken out in order to keep the pacing.

“Weirdly, the Cornetto scene actually relieved some of the tension between them. I was like, look, if you take the Cornetto scene out, then the tension from that first scene remains when they go into the interview scene,” López said. “I learned a lot of it is about taking the energy from one scene and using it to help you get into the next scene.”

He continued: “The Cornetto scene is charming. But we also understood, narratively speaking, it was unnecessary. And more to the point, it sapped the tension out.”

López also confirmed that there was never a three-hour version of the film, despite fan rumors, and that there are more deleted scenes.

“The breakfast scene at Kensington Palace. Everybody’s wondering what happened to the scene [at] the campfire,” López told Teen Vogue. “You cut things for pacing. You never want the audience to get ahead of you, you never want the audience to be bored.”

Red, White & Royal Blue is now available to stream on Prime Video.