Did "The Crown" Just Cast Their Third Queen Elizabeth II?
Though season 3 of The Crown just premiered on November 17, news of upcoming seasons is already swirling. Yep, season 4 is confirmed.
On November 22, the Daily Mail reported that Imelda Staunton had been cast as Queen Elizabeth II for season 5 of The Crown.
Netflix quickly dispelled the rumor, reporting it as "pure speculation."
You may not have binged all of The Crown's newly-released season 3, but there are already rumors about casting for the fifth season. Yes, we said season 5.
As we were getting hooked on the untold story of Princess Alice of Battenberg, a Soviet spy in Buckingham Palace, and the love quadrangle between Prince Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles, Princess Anne, and Andrew Parker Bowles (seriously), The Daily Mail reported that Olivia Colman will pass the baton to fellow British actress Imelda Staunton, who they said would be the next to portray Queen Elizabeth II.
Harry Potter fans will recognize Staunton as the incredibly evil Professor Dolores Umbridge, but she's also appeared in Downton Abbey, and earned a BAFTA for 2005's Vera Drake. But before The Crown fans get too excited, Netflix quickly issued a statement that no such decision had been made.
“We are currently filming season 4 of The Crown but have not commissioned any further seasons as yet, therefore any news on casting remains pure speculation," they said.
While the streaming giant chopping rumors up to "speculation" and not outright false information gives us hope, it is true that the company technically hasn't ordered any new episodes past season 4—which is set to finally introduce us to Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) and Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson).
However, it is widely believed that The Crown will have a total of six seasons, covering the queen's present-day life. That's mostly because Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, said as much in 2016, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"This is going to take Queen Elizabeth from age 29 to, presumably, the current day," he said. "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 ten hours...The idea is to do this over six decades, in six seasons presumably, and make the whole show over eight to 10 years."
So far the show has been following that model, with Claire Foy portraying the monarch in her early years as queen from seasons 1 to 2. Colman then took over, making her premiere run as a middle-aged Her Majesty for the current season 3, which follows her reign through the early '70s. She's set to keep the role through the confirmed season 4.
So even though we were excited about the Staunton news (because she kind of looks like the queen), it looks like we'll have to wait a little longer for confirmation of season 5. Until then, we have more-than-enough to binge and fact-check.
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