'The Audience' play to be adapted as a drama series for Netflix

The Crown, a drama series about Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and the prime ministers who shaped the country after World War II, is scheduled to premiere on Netflix in 2016.
Inspired by the celebrated West End play The Audience, the project reunites writer Peter Morgan with director Stephen Daldry and producer Andy Harries. The series is being produced by Left Bank Pictures in association with Sony Pictures Television.
Morgan also penned the 2006 film The Queen, in which Helen Mirren gave her Oscar-winning portrayal of the current monarch. Mirren reprised her role of Queen Elizabeth II on the stage in The Audience last year.
No casting for the Netflix series has been announced yet and it is unclear whether Mirren might play her royal role again in later seasons of the decades-spanning drama.
"The Crown tells the inside story of two of the most famous addresses in the world -- Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street -- and the intrigues, love lives and machinations behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century," a synopsis said.
Season 1 will start with the 25-year-old princess leading the monarchy, while forging a relationship with Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
"The Crown is storytelling that lives somewhere between television and cinema from Britain’'s foremost chroniclers of modern politics, class and society," Cindy Holland, vice president of original content at Netflix, said in a statement Thursday. "We are enormously proud to be the exclusive home of a series from Peter Morgan and Stephen Daldry that promises to fascinate and entertain audiences around the world."
Left Bank Pictures Chief Executive Andy Harries added: "Queen Elizabeth II has reigned throughout a period of unprecedented cultural and political change and her influence as monarch has been universal. Peter is a writer at the height of his powers and Stephen Daldry is one of the most entertaining and original film directors in the world. The series will be hugely ambitious and surprising, and perfectly captures the changes and complexities of a post-war world."
"The Crown is not only about the royal family, but about an empire in decline, a world in disarray and the dawn of a new era. I am beyond thrilled to be reunited with partners from film, theater and television for this epic project and delighted to be working for the first time with Netflix," said Morgan.
"Peter Morgan's scripts turn a tumultuous period of history into a thrilling story on an epic scale; dealing with both intimate relationships and international affairs. I cannot wait to bring The Crown to life for a global audience on Netflix," said Daldry.
The now 88-year-old queen was crowned in 1952 after the death of her father King George VI.