Yahoo Movies Netflix Suffers Royal Headache Over ‘The Crown’ S5, Plus Harry And Meghan’s Documentary Launch Date
Netflix faces a number of courtly challenges in the next couple of months, as it prepares to debut both the fifth season of The Crown, and a documentary starring the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Season 5 of The Crown is set to launch on November 5, and already there are rumblings by commentators in the UK that it doesn’t feel appropriate to bring the royals’ real-life 1990s troubles to the screen, so soon after Queen Elizabeth’s death in 2022.
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Asked about the forthcoming series, Jonathan Dimbleby – one of the UK’s most celebrated broadcasters and a friend of the new King – told the Times: “I don’t have patience with that kind of garbage.”
A biographer of Charles, Sally Bedell Smith, made the point that inaccuracies are more significant now for Charles in his position of monarch. She said: “The show has become a runaway train. But I think it is important to call out major mischaracterisations and inventions.
Related video: Prince Harry says 'The Crown' is more truthful than the media
“The consequences of inaccuracies are greater now that he is the monarch.”
The new season devotes much of its time to the warring camps of the divorcing Prince and Princess of Wales, with the Queen depicted as a figure distressed but unable to help with the disintegrating marriage of her son Prince Charles – now King Charles III.
Last November Jemima Khan, a filmmaker who moves in royal circles and was previously attached as a consultant to the project being show-run by Peter Morgan, had requested that her name be removed, once she was appraised of the subject matter. Khan told the Sunday Times: “It was really important to me that the final years of my friend’s life be portrayed accurately and with compassion, as has not always happened in the past.
Khan told the paper: “We worked together on the outline and scripts from September 2020 until February 2021. When our co-writing agreement was not honoured, and when I realised that particular storyline would not necessarily be told as respectfully or compassionately as I had hoped, I requested that all my contributions be removed from the series and I declined a credit.”
Additionally, Netflix must decide exactly when to drop its much-hyped documentary detailing the Montecito lives of Harry and Meghan. While the Times reported this week that the streamer is keen for the title to land in December on the back of The Crown, the Duke and Duchess are reported to be requesting changes and late edits – even possibly a postponed release until next year – to the piece directed by the award-winning Liz Garbus, no doubt in light of their recent attendance in the UK at the funeral of the Duke’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.
On top of this, the filmmakers are reported to be “confused” by remarks made by Prince Harry on camera being inconsistent with what he has written in his soon-to-be-published memoir – due out this autumn, but also seemingly delayed for now.
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