“The Crown” is one of the most expensive Netflix productions of all time. The film adaptation is dedicated to the rise and life of Queen Elizabeth II and deals with political, social and monarchical crises, scandals and intrigues of the British Empire. Each season covers a different decade of the Queen’s reign.
While the first season deals with the period from 1947 to 1956, starting with the wedding with Prince Philip, the sixth season is supposed to extend to the present day after the turn of the millennium – including the golden wedding of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in the 1997 and Charles and Camilla’s wedding in 2005. Now more details about the plot have been leaked.
A source told The Sun that the sequel will see current Queen actress Imelda Staunton, who portrayed the Queen in Season 5, as Claire Foy – who played the young Queen in Season 5 1 and 2 – as well as Olivia Colman – she was the “Queen” actress of the third and fourth seasons – meet.
“She’ll meet her in a sort of inner monologue, reflecting on her long life and reign,” the insider says. They are said to be the “most emotional scenes” ever on The Crown, “as they reflect what the Queen may have been thinking about in her final years.” But the three actresses don’t all meet at the same time – like in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, where the current Peter Parker actor Tom Holland meets the earlier versions – but at two separate meetings. It is a tribute to the queen who died in 2022.
The last season of the series dealt with the events of the 1990s, which primarily focused on Charles III’s marital problems. and focus on Princess Diana. Because Prince Charles urges his mother to finally agree to the divorce from Diana, while Diana breaks protocol and publishes her book about the dynamics of the Windsor house. In addition, the infamous “tampon gate” scandal from 1993 is the subject of the fifth season. Phone tapes revealed a conversation between Charles and his lover Camilla, in which he said, among other things, that he wanted to “live in her pants” and that if he were lucky, he would “be reborn as her tampon”.
The season ends with Diana, who has since been divorced from Charles, and her partner Dodi Al-Fayed saying goodbye to their vacation – the accidental death of the two in Paris is now to be shown in the sequel.
Dominic West, who embodies Charles in the series, told the industry magazine “Deadline” that it will be “as turbulent as possible”. Many of those involved would have great respect for the scenes depicting the death of Princess Diana. However, the team is primarily concentrating on the time before and after her death, since the actual accident would be emotionally too much. It does not want to overshoot the mark on such a sensitive matter.
As series creator Peter Morgan explains to “Deadline”, Charles will fly to Paris in one scene to receive the body of the princess. As it progresses, the focus will then shift to important family events such as the weddings and the beginning of Williams and Kate’s romance at St. Andrews University in Scotland. However, the series cannot take more recent events into account, explains producer Suzanne Mackie in an interview with “Broadcast”.
Morgan stressed that if he didn’t have enough time to realistically assess events, he couldn’t write anything. “I think he always felt that ten years is the absolute minimum amount of time to put something in historical context,” she says of the series creator’s work. However, one or the other more modern situation is not completely far off, as Mackie reveals: “We all know the stories, but what makes Peter so brilliant is going beyond that and understanding the landscape in a more nuanced, complex and surprising way.”
Incidentally, Harry and Meghan should not be seen together in the last season either, Morgan emphasized in an interview with “The Hollywood Reporter”: Meghan and Harry are “in the middle of their journey” and he does not know exactly what it looks like and when will it end. “One wishes for luck, but I feel a lot more comfortable writing about things that go back at least 20 years. I kind of have a 20-year rule in my head,” he explains. That is enough time and distance to really understand the importance of a role.
Morgan himself has to thank for the fact that a sixth season of “The Crown” appears at all. Because the successful series was actually supposed to be canceled after the first five seasons, since Morgan didn’t want to address the most modern developments for reasons of time. However, in 2020, Morgan said in an official statement: “When we started discussing the storylines for the fifth season, it quickly became clear that we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons.” This is the only way to do justice to the complexity of the story, he explains.
Season 6 of The Crown is scheduled to stream exclusively on Netflix later this year.
Quelle: “The Sun”, “Deadline” (1), (2) , “Broadcast”, “The Hollywood Reporter”
