The Crown will feature Diana's death in Paris car crash - 'delicately handled'

24 August 2023 , 20:08

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Princess Diana in 1991 (Image: UK Press via Getty Images)

The makers of The Crown have insisted their episode covering the death of Princess Diana is “sensitive and thoughtful”.

The final series of the award-winning Netflix show, written by Peter Morgan, will cover events before and after the fatal Paris crash in 1997. And executive producer Suzanne Mackie said: “With the Diana story, I think, there was no question that we would be, firstly, meticulous in our research and secondly and most importantly is to be sensitive and thoughtful.

“Elizabeth Debicki [who plays Diana] was so so thoughtful and considerate and loved Diana so there was a huge amount of respect from us all. I hope that’s evident.” Suzanne and fellow producer Andy Harries also teased some details of the last-ever episode. It is expected to be set in the early 2000s but may have been slightly influenced by the death of the Queen.

Andy said: “The final script didn’t change fundamentally but it did change in a sense. When you see it, you will know what I mean.” And the duo admitted if it hadn’t been for Netflix, The Crown may never have seen the light at all. Andy revealed: “It was always a very ambitious idea and I think from the very beginning Peter[Morgan] had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do.

Elizabeth Debicki as Diana (Press Association Images)

Diana died in 1997 (UK Press via Getty Images)

“We were chatting and he said there is a lot more I can do and he said there is three series and then he came back and said no six we can do the whole reign. He said if we do it we have to do it properly with a HBO budget. So the challenge was we were going out saying if you are buying into this you are buying into 20 hours, for the casting to work. So it had to be two seasons and then changing the cast, that was the commitment.

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“The kind of money we were looking for ended up with was £5 million an episode for the first series which was pretty big at the time for the UK and in line with the US. So it was a big ask. We took it to BBC and ITV and they were interested but it was really all about America. And streamers had only just started. So I was thinking ITV or Channel with an American co-pro like HBO. I was hoping somehow that would muster up 4, 5 million.

“In a nutshell we spent a week in America going to five networks of which Netflix was the last. HBO, FX, Showtime....they all said basically the same thing which was ‘yeah good idea but can we have it as a mini series’ and ‘can we cut all the crap and go straight to Diana’. Obviously that wasn’t what we wanted.

“Rather wonderfully we then went to Netflix who at the time just had a couple of series out and were only in the US and UK and hadn’t rolled out across the world. It was the best pitch I have ever had. Only Netflix said yes, but it only takes one.”

Mark Jefferies