Having found success with a show about women in prison, Netflix may next tackle a female-driven program in a slightly different socioeconomic setting. According to Variety, Netflix and Sony Pictures Television are currently in negotiations for a new original series about Queen Elizabeth II. The Crown would be a 20-plus-hour series featuring at least three actresses portraying Elizabeth over the course of her 60-year-plus reign.
The Crown will be written by Peter Morgan, who previously brought Elizabeth’s life to screen in The Queen and also penned Frost/Nixon, Rush, and The Last King Of Scotland. Director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) is also on board. The “epic” series will have a nearly $170 million budget.
While The Queen documented a specific moment in Elizabeth’s later years, this series will offer a more expansive view of her life. The Crown will start with her marriage to Prince Philip in 1947. According to The Daily Mail, the series will then “chronicle the private, political and social successes and upheavals that occurred during her decades as sovereign.”
Elizabeth was not born in direct royal succession. Instead—as documented in The King’s Speech—her father was only made King once his elder brother abdicated, when Elizabeth was just 10 years old. She became Queen at age 26 and, as the first female monarch since Queen Victoria, her reign has lasted through six decades and 12 U.S. presidents.