Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown
(Picture: AP)Fans of The Crown can get excited as it has been revealed that the series’ producers Left Bank and streaming giant Netflix are in talks for more than one prequel to the show.
Industry publication Deadline reported that discussions about a run of series which could cover royal history before Queen Elizabeth II’s reign are in very early stages, and no projects have been given the green light just yet.
The Crown, which landed on the streaming platform in 2016, has been one of Netflix’s biggest hits, picking up a slew of awards, drawing in big names like Olivia Colman, Helena Bonham Carter and Gillian Anderson, and supercharging the careers of its talented younger stars like Claire Foy, Vanessa Kirby, Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin.
Each series of the show, created by screenwriter Peter Morgan, has roughly covered a ten year period in Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, with a new cast of stars joining the show after two seasons to better reflect the characters’ ages, with Foy’s Queen handing the baton to Colman, who will hand the role over to Imelda Staunton for series five and six, alongside Jonathan Pryce as the Duke of Edinburgh (taking on the role from Tobias Menzies) and Dominic West, who takes over from Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles.
Season five is set to be released in November 2022 and will be set in the Nineties, covering the public fallout from the breakdown of Prince Charles (Dominic West)’s marriage to Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki). The sixth and final series is expected to finished in the early or mid-Noughties, though Morgan has not yet confirmed what the saga’s end point will be (he previously promised he had decided upon “the perfect time and place” to tie things up).
But which historical period could the new showcover? There is certainly no shortage of material to choose from.
The Queen was born in 1926, and The Crown season one begins in 1947, so there’s plenty of material from those early years of Elizabeth’s life for a new show to dig its teeth into – including women’s suffrage, the Great Depression, the death of King George V, the abdication of King Edward VIII and the Second World War.
It has also been suggested that a prequel could focus on the late Victorian era, exploring the end of Queen Victoria’s reign (before Elizabeth II, Victoria was the UK’s longest-serving monarch).
But for now, we just have to patiently wait and see. In the meantime, we’ll be counting down to series five, which will also see the likes of Jonny Lee Miller and Bertie Carvel joining the cast.
