Netflix’s royal drama “The Crown” will come to an end after its fifth season and before it catches up with current events.
Award-winning actress Imelda Staunton will assume the role of Queen Elizabeth in the final season of the show, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“The Crown” was originally planned to last six seasons, but series creator Peter Morgan decided that season 5 was the appropriate place to end, The Guardian reported.
“At the outset I had imagined ‘The Crown’ running for six seasons, but now that we have begun work on the stories for season 5, it has become clear to me that this is the perfect time and place to stop,” Morgan said, according to The Guardian. “I’m grateful to Netflix and Sony for supporting me in this decision.”
In the first two seasons, the role of Queen Elizabeth was played by Claire Foy, and Olivia Colman took over for seasons 3 and 4, according to The New York Times. Foy and Colman have both won Golden Globes for their performances, and Foy won an Emmy in 2018.
“I have loved watching ‘The Crown’ from the very start,” Staunton said in a statement shared on Twitter by “The Crown.” “As an actor it was a joy to see how both Claire Foy and Olivia Colman brought something special and unique to Peter Morgan’s scripts. I am genuinely honoured to be joining such an exceptional creative team and to be taking ‘The Crown’ to its conclusion.”
The show’s conclusion will come before the storyline (which has detailed the life of Queen Elizabeth and the royal family) reaches the present day.
“I feel uncomfortable writing about events within a certain time period. I think there’s a certain amount of time within which, if you write about it, what you do instantly becomes journalistic,” Morgan told Entertainment Weekly in a 2018 interview. “If you wait a certain amount of time, if you allow 15 or 20 years, basically a generation, between you and (the events) then you can write about it somewhat freely as drama. Let’s wait 20 years and see what there is to say about Meghan Markle.”