Imelda Staunton will take over as the Queen in the
fifth series. Photograph: AP
The Crown to be extended for sixth season on Netflix
Royal drama was due to end after series five but
show’s creator says it will continue
Sarah Marsh
@sloumarsh
Published
onThu 9 Jul 2020 18.45 BST
The
critically acclaimed royal drama The Crown will not abdicate just yet: the
Netflix production that was due to end after the fifth series is to be extended
for another season.
The show’s
creator and writer, Peter Morgan, has confirmed it will continue, after fans
were left disappointed that more episodes were not on the cards.
In January
fans were told the show, watched by more than 73m households worldwide, would
end with series five, but Morgan has now said that to do justice to the
“richness and complexity” of the story he will “go back to the original plan
and do six seasons”.
He said:
“To be clear, series six will not bring us any closer to present day – it will
simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail.”
The sixth
and final season will go into the early 2000s, but the number of episodes or
exact storylines it will cover is not yet known.
The fourth
series of the drama, featuring Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and Olivia
Colman returning as the Queen, airs later this year, and will include the
introduction of Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Emma Corrin.
Cindy
Holland, Netflix’s vice-president of original content, said: “The Crown keeps
raising the bar with each new season. We can’t wait for audiences to see the
upcoming fourth season, and we’re proud to support Peter’s vision and the
phenomenal cast and crew for a sixth and final season.”
In January
Netflix announced that Imelda Staunton would take over the role of the Queen
from Colman in the fifth series. Colman replaced Claire Foy to make her debut
as the monarch in the third series, which launched in November 2019.
The Phantom
Thread star Lesley Manville will play Princess Margaret in the fifth series,
following in the footsteps of Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter in the
role of the Queen’s sister.
At the time
when the series was curtailed to five series, it was speculated that this meant
it would not include contemporary problems faced by the royal family, including
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step down from royal duties.
While The
Crown was critically acclaimed in its first two series and won further awards
for its third, some of the excitement around it seemed to have waned. It did
not appear in a list Netflix published of its most-watched shows of 2019 in the
UK.
But the
award-winning show, one of the most popular on Netflix, has been described as
part of the “global cultural zeitgeist” by Ted Sarandos, chief content officer
at Netflix. The cast from season three won the Screen Actors Guild award for
best ensemble in a drama series, and Colman won the Golden Globe for best
actress in a drama series. The Crown has so far won 144 award nominations.
Earlier
this year, Sarandos praised the series, saying: “Thanks to creator and writer
Peter Morgan and a phenomenal cast and crew, the show’s popularity grows with
each new season and, as the recent SAG and Golden Globe Awards demonstrate, its
quality remains unsurpassed.”
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