Development In November 2014, it was announced that
Netflix was to adapt the 2013 stage play
The Audience into a television series.
Peter Morgan, who wrote the 2006 film
The Queen and the play, is the main scriptwriter for
The Crown. The directors of the first season are
Stephen Daldry,
Philip Martin,
Julian Jarrold, and
Benjamin Caron. The first 10-part season was the most expensive drama produced by Netflix and
Left Bank Pictures, costing at least £100 million. A second season was commissioned, with the series intended to span 60 episodes over six seasons. In January 2020, Morgan announced that the series had been renewed for a fifth and final season. Speaking to ending the series with five seasons, after it had been intended to last six, Morgan said while crafting the stories for season five, "it has become clear to me that this is the perfect time and place to stop"; Netflix and Sony supported Morgan's decision. As of 2020, the estimated production budget of
The Crown has been reported to be $260 million, making it one of the most expensive television series ever.
Casting By November 2014,
Claire Foy had entered negotiations to portray
Queen Elizabeth II. By May 2015,
Vanessa Kirby was in negotiations to portray
Princess Margaret. In June 2015,
John Lithgow was cast as
Winston Churchill,
Matt Smith was cast as
Prince Philip, and Foy was confirmed as Queen Elizabeth II.
Victoria Hamilton,
Jared Harris, and
Eileen Atkins were also starring in the first season. Foy reprised her role as the young Queen in cameos in seasons 4, 5 and 6. For her appearance in "48:1", the eighth episode of season 4, Foy won an
Emmy. The producers recast the continuing roles with older actors every two seasons as the timeline moves forward. By January 2018,
Helena Bonham Carter and
Paul Bettany were in negotiations to portray Princess Margaret and Prince Philip, respectively, for these seasons. However, by the end of the month, Bettany was forced to drop out due to the time commitment required. By the end of March 2018,
Tobias Menzies was cast as Prince Philip for the third and fourth seasons. In early May 2018, Bonham Carter was confirmed to have been cast alongside
Jason Watkins as Prime Minister
Harold Wilson. The next month,
Ben Daniels was cast as
Tony Armstrong-Jones for the third season, along with
Erin Doherty joining the series as
Princess Anne. A month later,
Josh O'Connor and
Marion Bailey were cast as Prince Charles and the Queen Mother, respectively, for the third and fourth seasons. In October 2018,
Emerald Fennell was cast as
Camilla Shand. In December 2018,
Charles Dance was cast as Louis Mountbatten. In April 2019,
Emma Corrin was cast as
Lady Diana Spencer for the fourth season.
Gillian Anderson, who had been rumoured since January 2019 to be in talks to portray
Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season, was officially confirmed for the role in September 2019. In January 2020,
Imelda Staunton was announced as succeeding Colman as the Queen in the fifth season, with her role in the final season reported in July. and the following month,
Jonathan Pryce and
Elizabeth Debicki were cast as Prince Philip and Diana, Princess of Wales, respectively. In October 2020,
Dominic West was in talks to play Prince Charles. His casting was confirmed in April 2021, when the start date for production of the fifth season was announced. In June 2021,
Jonny Lee Miller was cast as
John Major. During the same month,
Olivia Williams confirmed during an interview that she had joined the cast as Camilla Parker Bowles for the series's fifth and sixth seasons. In July 2021, actress
Marcia Warren joined the cast during filming as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. That same month, the casting of Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne was also confirmed. In September 2021,
Khalid Abdalla and Salim Daw were announced to play
Dodi Fayed and
Mohamed Al-Fayed, respectively. Later that month, it was confirmed that
Timothy Dalton had been cast as
Peter Townsend. In January 2022,
Humayun Saeed was cast as
Dr Hasnat Khan. A casting search for actors to play teenage
Prince William and
Prince Harry in the sixth season began in March 2022. The new actor for Prince William would replace Senan West, who was cast as a young Prince William for season five, with the other new castings for the fifth season expected to remain for the sixth season. In September 2022, it was announced that Rufus Kampa and
Ed McVey would portray Prince William, and
Meg Bellamy would portray Catherine Middleton.
Gender pay gap controversy The Left Bank producers stated that Smith was paid more than Foy for the first two seasons, partly because of his
Doctor Who fame. This led to a
gender pay gap controversy, including the creation of a petition asking Smith to donate the difference between his and Foy's salary to the
Time's Up Legal Defense Fund. Left Bank later apologised to Foy and Smith and said that they had been at the centre of a media storm "through no fault of their own", adding that they "are responsible for budgets and salaries; the actors are not aware of who gets what, and cannot be held personally responsible for the pay of their colleagues". They added that they support "the drive for gender equality in film and TV and [were] eager to talk to the British Time's Up campaign and [were] already speaking to Era 50:50, a group campaigning for gender equality on screen and stage".
Suzanne Mackie, Left Bank's creative director, did note that in the future, no actor would be paid more than the actress portraying the Queen. Smith noted that he supported Foy and was "pleased that it was resolved and [the producers] made amends for it because that's what needed to happen".
The Hollywood Reporter noted it was unclear what Smith was referring to as resolved since Netflix and Left Bank had not commented further. Foy later described reports that she had received backpay to bring her salary up to parity as "not quite correct".
Filming An estimated 25% of the first season was filmed at
Elstree Studios in
Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, with the remainder filmed on location, altogether taking 152 days. Sets for private quarters, the interior of a private jet, the cabinet room, and the exterior of
10 Downing Street were built at Elstree Studios.
Waddesdon Manor,
Eltham Palace, the
Royal Naval College,
Goldsmiths' Hall,
Shoreham Airport,
New Slains Castle,
Balmoral Castle,
Cruden Bay,
Lyceum Theatre,
Loseley Park,
Hatfield House,
The Historic Dockyard Chatham,
Southwark Cathedral,
Ardverikie House,
Englefield House,
Wellington College, the
Great Central Railway and the
Glenfeshie Estate. Filming for the second season began in early October 2016. Each episode of the first two seasons would shoot for about 22 days with each costing about £5 million to produce. and concluded in February 2019. The fourth season began filming in August 2019 and wrapped in March 2020. Shooting locations used to double foreign settings included
Manchester (as New York City),
Málaga and
Almería (as Sydney and other Australian settings), as well as Atlanterra,
Cádiz (as
Mustique). The filming of the fifth season began in July 2021. The year break in filming between the end of season four and the start of season five was built into the series's production schedule. It was not related to the
COVID-19 pandemic. On 16 February 2022, items previously used in the series's production worth £150,000 were stolen from three vehicles, most of which were described as having "limited value for resale" but "are valuable as pieces to the UK film industry". Locations featured in series five included
Cobham Hall, which doubled as
Eton College, and
the Historic Dockyard at Chatham, both in
Kent. Filming for the sixth season began in August 2022, In October 2022, it was reported that the events just before and right after the
death of Diana, Princess of Wales in
Paris would be filmed for season six.
Historical accuracy The series has been criticised for its depiction of historical events, particularly from the fourth season onwards. The programme's historical consultant,
Robert Lacey, has stated that "there are two sorts of truth. There's historical truth, and then there's the larger truth about the past" and that "when history gets departed from, it's not done casually. It's done on the basis of wanting to convey a particular message that can only be conveyed by invention." An example of such a departure is the season one plot in which the Queen and the government oppose Princess Margaret's desire to marry Peter Townsend, which would have required the monarch's permission under the
Royal Marriages Act 1772; in reality, a plan was made to amend the Act to allow the marriage while removing Margaret and her children from the line of succession. The third season was criticised for omitting any mention of
Rhodesia and the crisis about their
Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The fourth season was criticised in the UK press as "inaccurate" and "anti-monarchy". It was described as "fake history" by
Simon Jenkins in
The Guardian, and the royal biographer
Sally Bedell Smith stated that "because
The Crown is such a lavish and expensive production, so beautifully acted and cleverly written, and so much attention has been paid to visual details about historical events, viewers are tricked into believing that what they are seeing actually happened". The British culture secretary,
Oliver Dowden, and the actress
Judi Dench both suggested that the series should have a fiction warning at the beginning as a disclaimer, with Dench arguing that the show could mislead non-British audiences with its use of dramatic licence. In October 2022, Netflix added a disclaimer to the series's title synopsis page on its website and to the
YouTube description of the trailer for season five, which describes it as a "fictional dramatisation" that was "inspired by real events". The accuracy of the series has been criticised by some of the individuals and institutions portrayed.
Gordonstoun School responded to its negative portrayal by claiming that Prince Charles's personal feedback to the school had been overwhelmingly positive.
Michael Fagan, whose intrusion into the Queen's bedroom while she slept is depicted in season four, has said that his conversation with the Queen was "short, polite and non-controversial", and that he never spoke about Margaret Thatcher as he is shown doing in the series. The former
prime ministers John Major and
Tony Blair publicly criticised the series; Blair's spokesman described the first episode of season five, where in 1991, Prince Charles is portrayed attempting to recruit John Major and Tony Blair to support the Queen's abdication in favour of him, as "complete and utter rubbish". Major stated that no such conversation took place and that the scene was "a barrel-load of malicious nonsense". Conversely, during a 2021 appearance on
The Late Late Show with James Corden,
Prince Harry stated that he was comfortable with
The Crowns portrayal of the royal family, noting that, while as a work of fiction, it is "not strictly accurate", it does give a "rough idea" of the pressures of "putting duty and service above family and everything else". ==Release==