Netflix’s The Princess Switch: Switched Again Cameo Complicates The Shared Holiday Universe

Vanessa Hudgens twice in Princess Switch: Switched Again
(Image credit: (Netflix))

Netflix sees you, “it’s never too early to get into the Christmas spirit” people. The platform is putting in all the work to keep us fed with some delicious appetizers ahead of the holiday season really setting in next week. Princess Switch: Switched Again is already a hit on the streaming service a week into its release alongside the musical Jingle Jangle and Christmas Chronicles 2 is sure to crack the top ten soon too when it comes out this week. And thus, it’s time to talk about Netflix’s shared holiday universe again.

Did you know about this? The streaming site has been taking note from the MCU with its original holiday content since 2017. A number of movies Netflix has produced for Christmas time have small references to others, making for a conspiracy tree (literally a tree, y’all) that the studio confirmed last year. Except this year’s first movie universe easter egg takes the game to another level. Have you caught this:

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In Princess Switch: Switched Again, there is a cameo involving the couple from the Christmas Prince movies. Rose McIver’s Amber and Ben Lamb’s Prince Richard show up to the coronation of Vanessa Hudgens’ Duchess Margaret. The kicker here is in the first Princess Switch movie, Hudgens’ other character Stacy sits down to watch A Christmas Prince. While in the previous movie, it was insinuated that A Christmas Prince was a movie that Hudgens could watch on Netflix just like we can, as it turns out, she was sitting down to watch a biopic of real royals she would later meet? What the heck? It’s clearly got some fans confuddled:

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What kind of twisted Truman Show world is Netflix trying to pull here? If you’ve seen A Christmas Prince you know how un-biopic-y the romantic comedy is. I guess both films exist in this fantasy world away from reality and reason. I’d go with that. Fans have all the questions now though:

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Now that I think about it, Switched Again probably course corrects the Netflix Holiday Movie Universe. In the beginning with the 2018 movie, let’s be honest here, the easter egg was purely a commercial within the film to remind Christmas movie bingers they’ll also like A Christmas Prince too. For the recent sequel, it’s perhaps making room for them to actually share each other’s universe and perhaps crossover in a larger way?

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However, thus far most of the “shared holiday universe” moments have consisted of other holiday movies being on the TV of other movies. For example 2017’s Christmas Inheritance is also on TV in the first Princess Switch and in 2018’s The Holiday Calendar and A Christmas Prince is also on TV in The Holiday Calendar. Last year’s Holiday in the Wild is on the TV in The Knight Before Christmas, but in Knight the kingdom from A Christmas Prince (Aldovia) is mentioned. With that said Vanessa Hudgens is also the star of The Knight Before Christmas and therefore in the shared universe of Princess Switch. So, in conclusion the fourth Vanessa doppelgänger is The Knight Before Christmas’ Brooke? Is that where things are heading next?

Check out all the new holiday movies on Netflix’s advent calendar and share your stance on the shared universe in the poll below.

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Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.