‘Kissing Booth 3’: Netflix Surprises With Announcement of Secret Joey King Film Finished Before Coronavirus Pandemic

Just days after the premiere of The Kissing Booth 2 on Netflix, the streamer has announced another sequel to the teen-centric romcom will be coming in 2021. As a bonus, they filmed it in secret while making the sequel, so the film’s post-production can be completed despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement came during a Netflix livestream event for the sequel, via Deadline. Given the circumstances behind the filming, The Kissing Booth 3 will feature the entire cast returning. This list includes star Joey King, Joel Courtney, Jacob Elordi, Taylor Zakhar Perez and ’80s teen movie icon Molly Ringwald. “It was the hardest secret to keep,” Courtney confessed during the Q-and-A.

The Kissing Booth came out back in 2018 and based on the novel by Beth Reekles, which itself was self-published on Wattpad. It was directed by Vince Marcello, who helmed both the sequel and the threequel. Marcello and Jay Arnold wrote the screenplays.

After its release, The Kissing Booth didn’t exactly win over any critics, nor did its sequel. They sport 17 and 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively. However, the coming-of-age tale turned out to be a huge hit with Netflix viewers. Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told Vulture in June of 2018 that it was “one of the most-watched movies in the country, and maybe in the world.”

In an interview with Mood with Lauren Elizabeth, King professed that she’s not only the star of The Kissing Booth franchise, but she’s also a big fan of the films, too. “I am very much, like, a freakin’ huge fan of The Kissing Booth myself, which sounds really narcissistic, but I am,” King said. “It’s my night light at night. Because I don’t want to watch ‘Oh I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m really invested to see what thing they’re baking on the Great British Baking Show.’ I’ve already seen The Kissing Booth.”

Citing IMDb’s popularity rankings at the time, Sarandos boasted that it was the fourth most popular movie behind Deadpool 2, Avengers: Infinity War, and Solo. “Jacob Elordi is the male lead. Three weeks ago on the IMDb Star-o-Meter, which is how they rank their popularity, he was No. 25,000. Today he is the No. 1 star in the world,” Sarandos said. “And Joey King, the female lead, went from like number 17,000 to number six. This is a movie that I bet you’d never heard of until I just mentioned it to you.”