Since making its premiere on November 4, The Crown has become an indisputable hit for Netflix. The 10-part series, created by two-time Oscar nominee Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), follows the ascension and early reign of Queen Elizabeth II (played by Claire Foy) and the challenges it creates in her personal life, particularly in her marriage to Prince Philip (played by former Doctor Who star Matt Smith). As the streaming channel’s latest binge-worthy offering, fans are already clamoring for details on the second season. Here’s what we know.
1. YES, THERE WILL BE A SECOND SEASON.
Just days after the first season of The Crown dropped, Netflix confirmed that it would be returning for a second season. Though there’s no official release date, all sources point to a similar premiere time frame, in October or November of 2017.
2. PRODUCTION ON SEASON TWO BEGAN BEFORE SEASON ONE PREMIERED.
Last week, while speaking on a panel for the nonprofit organization Visionary Women, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos confirmed that production on the show’s second season is already underway. “We’re in production now on the second season,” Sarandos said. “This is going to take Queen Elizabeth from age 29 to, presumably, the current day. We’ll see it lay out over decades. We’ve seen a lot of things about Queen Elizabeth, but we’ve already learned more about her than we ever had by watching the first 10 hours.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair, published on November 18, Foy revealed that they were already a month into shooting. “We literally pick up where we left off—in 1956,’’ she said. “I think Peter’s taking [us up to] ’63 or ’64. We get into the 60s, and it is a whole other world happening. It’s really exciting, especially because we’ve had such a positive response and everyone’s been really encouraging. It just makes everybody, especially the crew, work even harder. When we first started shooting, and it hadn’t come out. We were like, ‘Oh god, what if they hate it?’ And then we’ll [still have to film a second season] knowing that everyone hated it.”
3. SEASON TWO WILL FOCUS ON THE SUEZ CRISIS.
Season two will focus largely on the Suez Crisis of 1956. “Initially, I thought this would only be three seasons,” Morgan told The Hollywood Reporter. “It would be one season of her as the Young Queen, one season of her as the Middle-Aged Queen, one season of her as an Old Queen. It’s only in the writing of it that I said, ‘Oh, my God I need more time.’ The truth of the matter is, I could’ve written three or even four seasons of her as the Young Queen. I did get to the point where I thought, ‘Actually no, let’s leave it on the knife’s edge of Suez because Suez feels like a changing point for the country. Britain was never the same again after Suez.’ Therefore, I was going to deal with that at the beginning of season two. Which we do.”
4. NETFLIX WOULD LIKE TO SEE A TOTAL OF SIX SEASONS.
Though it’s the most expensive production (so far) in Netflix’s history, Sarandos seems rather pleased with the results of The Crown—and the audience’s reaction to it. Even if season two does bring viewers up to the present day, the series won’t stop there. In fact, from the get-go, Netflix saw the series as a long-term investment. “The idea is to do this over six decades, in six seasons presumably, and make the whole show over eight to 10 years,” Sarandos said.
For his part, Morgan isn’t able to look beyond season two at the moment. “I cannot think beyond season two and I’m not going to think beyond season two,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “Of course by virtue of the fact that we continue to have Prime Ministers and the Queen has continued to stay alive and on the throne, there is a possibility of further material … The agreement I made with Netflix is that I would wait and see how the show was received before ever considering continuing. Because there’s simply no point in continuing unless what you’re doing has somehow connected or punched through at a significant level. It’s simply too overwhelming a commitment. I haven’t thought for one second about future seasons because I’m almost living in denial of the possibility of this continuing.”
5. FUTURE SEASONS COULD SEE SOME MAJOR CAST CHANGES.
Though Foy and Smith are both back for season two of The Crown, it will reportedly be their last. Because of the chronological nature of the narrative, seasons three and beyond would focus on the Queen in the later years of her reign, which would require an older actress. According to Digital Spy, if all six seasons of the series shake out as planned, the cast will change for season three then again in season five, for the final two seasons. Producer Andrew Eaton said that he and the rest of the team have had some “conversations” about who might play the royal couple next, but right now they are firmly focused on Foy.
“We saw a number of actresses in the beginning [to play the young Elizabeth] who were all brilliant, but Claire … there was something about her,” Eaton said.
“If you’re going to take this character—and she’s doing all of the first two seasons, so it’s 20 hours with the same character—it’s got to be someone that you can identify with and feels vulnerable and sympathetic and she has that quality as a person.”
The Crown is streaming now on Netflix.
November 21, 2016 – 2:00am