Fifth season of The Crown to roll this summer?

A still from The Crown

Get ready for more royal drama! The next season of the hit Netflix series 'The Crown' will begin filming this summer. As per Variety, season five of the insanely popular show will begin production in July. The upcoming season will feature a brand new cast, including Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, Dominic West as Prince Charles, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip and Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret.

The UK is due to ease COVID-19 restrictions on April 12 following the latest lockdown. The fourth season wrapped early in March 2020 amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

While other shows were starting to shut down early due to the virus, 'The Crown', which largely films in London, was already nearing the end of filming for its fourth season. As a result, the production pushed to finish and did so a few days earlier than anticipated.

Although Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's exit from royal life has been grabbing headlines in recent months, the storyline will not make it to the Netflix show and it was never the intention to cover the royal family up to the modern era.

The show is only expected to cover up until the early 2000s -- long before Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle joined the royal family.

The upcoming season of the show will see the royal family tackle the early 1990s -- a tumultuous time for the royals, which saw the dissolution of Prince Charles and Princess Diana's marriage.

The role of Princess Diana, which was beautifully played by actor Emma Corrin in the fourth season, will now go to Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki, whose credits include roles in 'The Night Manager' and Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet'.

After previously announcing that 'The Crown' would end after the fifth season, show creator Peter Morgan announced last July that he had changed his mind and decided to end the hit series after season six.

"As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons," Morgan said.

He added, "To be clear, Series 6 will not bring us any closer to present-day -- it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail."

Premiering in 2016, 'The Crown' has followed the royal family through various time periods, starting in the late 1940s and early 1950s with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's marriage and early careers.

The third season, released in 2019, jumped forward in time to the 1960s and 1970s, replacing the cast with older actors. Season four followed the relationship between Princess Diana, who was born in 1961, and Prince Charles.

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