This Is Why The Crown Is Ending

Fans of The Crown were disappointed to hear the news that the beloved historical drama, which focuses on the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II, will be concluding after five seasons instead of six seasons as originally planned. Why is the show coming to an early end?

It might have something to do with money. As insiders told Deadline, most Netflix shows have a run of around 30 episodes or three seasons. Anything beyond that doesn't tend to increase revenue for the streaming platform, but it does make the show much more expensive to produce because "Netflix's deals include bump/bonuses after each season that are getting progressively bigger."

After the third season of a Netflix show, costs can increase "sometimes from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars" as Netflix "starts to pay off the shows' back-end." The fact that The Crown is getting five seasons is already a rarity, and one that is likely costing the platform a royal sum.

While the news that The Crown is coming to an early end is disappointing, we've still got two full seasons to look forward to. Season 4 does not yet have a release date, but Vogue noted that it will likely drop at the end of this year. We also don't have to worry about the show not coming to a satisfying conclusion as may have happened with a more abrupt cancellation.

Not only will the show wrap up neatly, but it seems like show creator Peter Morgan may even have been the one to make the final call about the show ending after five seasons. "At the outset I had imagined The Crown running for six seasons but now that we have begun work on the stories for season five it has become clear to me that this is the perfect time and place to stop," he said in a statement (via CNN). "I'm grateful to Netflix and Sony for supporting me in this decision."

Morgan previously said that he had no intention of allowing the show to run into the modern era. "I feel uncomfortable writing about events within a certain time period," he told Entertainment Weekly. "I think there's a certain amount of time within which, if you write about it, what you do instantly becomes journalistic. Because it's too close to the moment."