ReportWire

Tag: The Crown

  • The 8 Biggest Takeaways From Netflix’s Latest Ratings Dump

    The 8 Biggest Takeaways From Netflix’s Latest Ratings Dump

    The Crown; One Piece.
    Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Netflix

    Another six months, another Netflix data blast — this time dumped unceremoniously in a blog post on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. Still, more information is better than no information, and the streamer’s second “What We Watched” engagement report, compiling views between last July and December 2023, is its latest officially zoomed-out picture of how Netflix movies and TV shows are doing — despite the shortcomings of crunching the numbers in aggregate on a spreadsheet that, combined, is nearly 16,000 rows long.

    The biggest movie of the back half of 2023 wasn’t a major awards contender nor a bombastic blockbuster — it was an adaptation of Leave the World Behind, which despite an apocalyptic premise often feels more like a stage play than it does a feature film. And the biggest single season of TV wasn’t buzzy awards bait or even one of a revived catalogue hit like Suits — it was an American-produced, live-action adaptation of a Japanese comic full of superpowered pirate antics and snot-nosed crying. Both were notable titles, to be sure, but it would have been hard to predict that either of them would wind up as chart-toppers.

    One new wrinkle in the new report: It’s now accounting for a title’s runtime, incorporating it into a “views” stat (time spent watching divided by a title’s length). This evens the field somewhat between movies and TV shows, something that Kasey Moore, founder of the pioneering tracking site What’s on Netflix, finds useful. “Incorporating the new views metric highlights the two purposes of movies and series in my eyes,” he tells Vulture. “TV shows still suck up the majority of viewing hours, but lots of people do come in for the movies, contrary to popular belief.” Moore was also struck by the continued popularity of children’s programming on Netflix. “So much of the top 100 (views or viewing hours) are family, kids, and animated titles,” he says, noting that the most popular titles are from outside studios such as DreamWorks, Illumination, Moonbug, and Nickelodeon, “which must be a source of concern.”

    Moore also noticed how the premiere of a new season of a show brings new attention to past installments of the series. “When new seasons of Sweet Magnolias and Virgin River both released, it saw meaningful bumps in those earlier seasons. You can see it, too, with Squid Game: The Challenge giving a bump to Squid Game.”

    With considerations like those in mind, we’ve combed through the sheet and pulled out the eight most noteworthy highlights therein.

    Maybe all you really need to engineer a global hit on Netflix is Julia Roberts and an argument for physical media. But even accounting for her star wattage, Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, which topped the second half of the year’s film charts in just three weeks (it was released December 8), is a curious worldwide hit. (The last movie Esmail directed made less than $20,000 at the box office.) Consider the three runners-up that its 121 million views eclipsed: Gal Gadot’s blockbuster Heart of Stone (109.6 million views across more than 20 weeks), a host of family-friendly fare including Adam Sandler’s Leo (96 million views in 40 days), and the dystopian Spanish-refugee saga Nowhere (86.2 million views in over 16 weeks).

    The movie that beat those movies is an anti-blockbuster that — some shocking imagery and set pieces aside — remains a mostly quiet adaptation of a mostly quiet book that never escapes the Long Island suburbs. In some ways it feels closer to The Killer or May December than a traditionally explosive title like Zack Snyder’s first Rebel Moon entry, which debuted December 21 and by the end of the year had not yet beaten longtime Netflix library title Paw Patrol: The Movie.

    One Piece, based on Eiichiro Oda’s long-running manga, notched 71.6 million views globally — almost 20 million more than the runner-up, Germany’s Dear Child. Netflix’s track record with live-action adaptations is spotty at best (Cowboy Bebop’s second-week viewership fell like a rock and it was swiftly canceled), but it’s still cultivated an anime fanbase with high-profile legacy acquisitions like Pokémon and Neon Genesis Evangelion, as well as new simulcasts like Vinland Saga — to say nothing of the 41(!) separate batches of licensed One Piece anime episodes on the platform that added up to 50 million views globally in the second half of 2023. Those numbers are linked; the question going forward will be what Netflix can do with a Japanese title not named One Piece.

    One of the first big moves Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos made on the feature-film front was signing Adam Sandler to a multi-picture deal in 2014. A decade later, that pact is still bearing fruit: Two of the Sandman’s movies — the animated Leo (96 million views) and the teen comedy You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (60.6 million views) — ranked among the streamer’s 15 biggest films in the second half of 2023. But Sandler’s value is not just in his new material. Three other Netflix-produced movies featuring the former SNL legend (2019’s Murder Mystery and its spring 2023 sequel, as well as 2020’s Hubie Halloween) managed to draw more than 10 million views years after their releases, as did both of Sandler’s Grown Ups movies. And proving once again that critical acclaim and audience taste aren’t always in sync, some of Sandler’s more acclaimed roles didn’t do quite as well: Uncut Gems notched a relatively modest 3.1 million views during the report period, while Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) managed a mere 900,000 views. On the other hand, both did better than the critically panned Sandy Wexler (600,000 views).

    Last month, a New York Times story about new Netflix film chief Dan Lin carried a rather ominous headline for fans of the streamer’s more prestige plays, warning its new strategy was “more about the audience, less about auteurs.” If that’s the case, it’s quite possible Lin could be reacting to the underwhelming performance of some of Netflix’s most acclaimed films last fall. For instance, despite near-universal raves for Colman Domingo and Rustin, the film generated a meager 2.6 million views during its first two months on the platform. The Todd Haynes–directed May December did better, but its 6.8 million views doesn’t even place it (or Rustin) among Netflix’s top 400 (that’s not a typo) movie titles during the second half of 2023.

    And while the much more high-profile Maestro came out too late in the year (December 20) to get a fair read on its overall audience, Bradley Cooper’s opus never once landed in Netflix’s weekly top ten lists, and its overall audience during the last 11 days of the year — 6.7 million views — suggests that the film did not go on to become a blockbuster once its seven Oscar nominations were announced in January. By comparison, the Annette Bening/Jodi Foster team-up Nyad, with 16.3 million views (and a two-week run on Netflix’s global top-ten list in September) was a relative smash. But even it ended up with far fewer views than Love Is in the Air, a Hallmark-style rom-com from Australia (tagline: “When skies clear, hope shines through”) that tallied up an impressive 27.3 million views — and likely was produced at a fraction of the cost of those other movies.

    Matt Rife and Shane Gillis might not be universally beloved by comedy critics, but they’re very popular with Netflix subscribers. Despite coming out late in the year, Rife’s November release Natural Selection generated 12.7 million views, making it one of the year’s biggest comedy specials on the streamer, while Gillis’s Beautiful Dogs wasn’t too far behind, with 12 million views (though, since it came out September 5, it had more time to build an audience). Tom Segura’s Sledgehammer, released in July, was another comedy over-performer, generating 11.8 million views.

    But in another example of how much timing matters when looking at Netflix’s engagement report, consider the performance of Dave Chappelle’s last special, The Dreamer. It dropped on the very last day of 2023, giving it very little time to generate views that count toward the semi-annual rankings. It nonetheless managed a solid 2.2 million views during that 24-hour frame. But per Netflix’s weekly top-ten lists, the special would go on to amass at least 12.8 million more views during its first two full weeks on the platform, for a total of at least 15 million views — bigger than the specials from Rife and Gillis. Those numbers might explain why Netflix execs keep making deals with Chapelle, despite his fondness for making anti-trans remarks during his sets.

    The sixth and final season of The Crown did not go out with a bang: It generated a modest 25.2 million views in Netflix’s new engagement report, which is slightly less than season one of Young Sheldon (26.1 million) generated, despite not being available in every Netflix territory and it not landing on Netflix U.S. until late November (it had been on the platform in smaller countries before then). To be fair, The Crown released its final season in two batches, giving its final episodes just a few weeks to amass eyeballs. But the show also disappeared from Netflix’s global top ten by early January 2024, hinting the show didn’t exactly stay on fire once the window for this engagement report closed. No doubt there will be a long tail for The Crown as some viewers finally catch up and some die-hard royalists rewatch. But the intensity of audience interest that greeted past seasons of the show definitely seemed to cool as things wrapped up.

    In a sign that people really, really love Wednesday, the fall 2022 release generated a total of 98.4 million views in 2023 — including 23.9 million views just in the second half of the year. Needless to say, that’s a bigger audience than 90 percent of Netflix’s original scripted series, including ones which actually premiered during the last six months of 2023. Case in point: Big Mouth, which in its early years felt like one of the hottest shows on Netflix, amassed a surprisingly small 8.5 million views for its seventh season, which dropped in October. The fact that year-old episodes of Wednesday drew three times as many views as brand-new installments of Big Mouth probably explains why the latter show will debut its final season next year.

    What’s on Netflix has helpfully added up viewing data from both of Netflix’s 2023 engagement reports, allowing for a better look at how titles performed for the full year. And while Leave the World Behind remains popular no matter how you look at it, it’s clear that for Netflix, J.Lo really is mother: Her May 2023 release The Mother ended up generating a phenomenal 153.7 million views for the full year (25.5 million of which came in the second half of 2023), making it the biggest title on the streamer last year. It was followed by Extraction 2 (151.7 million) and Murder Mystery 2 (129.7 million) as the most popular movies for all of 2023.

    But once again, the weirdness of how Netflix releases data means you need to be careful in drawing conclusions about a title’s overall popularity. While Mother was the No. 1 movie of 2023 for Netflix, lots of people waited until January (or later) to catch Leave the World Behind, allowing it to eventually pass Mother on Netflix’s top-ten movies of all time list.

    In terms of series, while One Piece ruled the second half of 2023, it pales next to several other releases from earlier in the year. The Night Agent, for example, snagged 99.2 million views last spring, then tacked on another 19 million last summer and fall for an annual total of 118.2 million views — by far Netflix’s biggest series last year. It’s followed by Wednesday (98.4 million for the year) and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (89.6 million). One Piece is certainly still generating views, of course, and its tally will jump once the next engagement report comes out. But it’s unlikely to catch Night Agent or even Wednesday.

    Josef Adalian,Eric Vilas-Boas

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  • Have You Seen Kate Middleton?

    Have You Seen Kate Middleton?

    WANTED: Kate Middleton, The Princess of Wales, presumed kidnapped by King Charles and the Royal Family unless returned to our TV screens immediately.

    I’m not one to follow the
    Royal Family — all I know is that Queen Elizabeth may be reincarnated into Trisha Paytas’ baby, Malibu Barbie, and they presumably disappeared Princess Di. And while my phone didn’t scream with a missing persons report, my Twitter (X?) timeline is all ablaze with conspiracies about what happened to Kate.

    Amidst confirmation that King Charles III is battling cancer, followers of the Royals have noticed a peculiar missing piece at certain public events: Prince William’s wife, Kate. While William made a last-minute appearance at Greece’s King Constantine II’s funeral, Kate was noticeably absent. According to
    Vanity Fair,

    Middleton, 42, has been recovering from her procedure at Adelaide Cottage, the couple’s residence at the royal family’s Windsor Castle estate, since she was discharged from a London hospital after a week-plus inpatient stay following the surgery.

    And while we hope the Princess of Wales is in good health, the people of the internet have been making their own assumptions about what happened to Kate Middleton. Since we can’t help but speculate, social media users have tossed about ideas like she’s waiting out a bad haircut, she’s gotten plastic surgery, she’s run away to live in America, the list goes on…

    Across the pond at Buckingham Palace, sources claim it was planned abdominal surgery (and we hope she’s safe and healthy)…but if we chose to believe everything the Royals said, we wouldn’t have
    The Crown.

    Jai Phillips

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  • Cindy Crawford Shares Photo With Princess Diana After ‘The Crown’ Cameo

    Cindy Crawford Shares Photo With Princess Diana After ‘The Crown’ Cameo

    After popping up briefly in this season of The Crown, supermodel Cindy Crawford reshared an old throwback photo on Instagram with none other than Princess Diana.

    Instagram content

    This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

    In part two of the sixth season, episode 5, “Willsmania,” Prince William (Ed McVey) returns to his dorm room at Eton to find that his grandfather, Prince Phillip (Jonathan Pryce), had paid a surprise visit. Prince Phillip takes a look at William’s postered walls and, in an attempt to bond with his grandson, asks the prince who the the models in the poster are. Prince William responds that they’re Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and Cindy Crawford. “In my day, it was Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, and Lana Turner,” Phillip replies.

    Though it’s a relatively small moment on the show, it made a big impact on Crawford, who shared a photo with William’s mother, Princess Diana, taken at Kensington Palace. Crawford originally posted the image on August 31, 2017, the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s fatal car accident. “Remembering this inspiring woman today,” the caption from 2017 reads. “This photo was taken at Kensington Palace. Princess Diana had somehow got the number to my office and called herself to ask for me.” 

    She continues: “My assistant was in shock! We finally connected and she asked if the next time I was in London I would come by for tea—I think Prince William was just starting to notice models and she thought it would be a cute surprise for him and Prince Harry,” she continued. “I was nervous and didn’t know what to wear, but remember as soon as she came into the room and we started talking, it was like talking to a girlfriend. She was a class act and showed us all what a modern day princess should be. Rest In Peace.”

    Six years later, Crawford has re-shared the image with a nod to her “little cameo” on The Crown.  “I still vividly remember visiting Kensington Palace to meet Diana and a teenage William (who had just discovered the “Super Models”) ♥️,” Crawford wrote on her Instagram story. Even supermodels were excited to be in Princess Diana’s presence.

    Listen to Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast now.

    Chris Murphy

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  • Netflix Data Dump Reveals Eclectic List Of Top UK Originals, With ‘Luther’ Leading The Pack

    Netflix Data Dump Reveals Eclectic List Of Top UK Originals, With ‘Luther’ Leading The Pack

    Netflix further prized open the lid to its black box of data on Tuesday, with the streamer publishing a list of viewing figures for nearly 2,000 titles in its library.

    The ratings dump covers the first half of 2023 and is measured as “hours viewed,” which departs from Netflix’s publication of “views,” the metric that it began using this year to rank its Top 10 lists.

    Hours viewed puts shorter content at a significant disadvantage, while longer series (usually dramas) stand to benefit, but the figures do still offer a rare insight into Netflix subscriber behavior.

    U.S. films and series unsurprisingly dominate Netflix’s list, with political conspiracy thriller The Night Agent topping the pile with 812M hours viewed. Little wonder Netflix renewed the series so swiftly.

    The Brits were heavily represented, even if the first half of 2023 appeared a little light on new UK originals, with the likes of Sex Education, Beckham, Squid Game: The Challenge, and The Crown held back for recent months.

    Leading the pack was feature Luther: The Fallen Sun, which had 209M hours viewed, securing it a top-20 place in the overall global ranking published by Netflix. A table of the top-ranked UK titles is below.

    The Idris Elba drama was streaks ahead of rivals and its performance supports Barb viewing data out of the UK, which showed the movie had 3M viewers after its March premiere.

    Season 6 of Black Mirror launched on June 15, meaning it only had two weeks to accrue 139M hours viewed. This trajectory suggests it will easily surpass Luther by the time of Netflix’s next disclosure.

    Joe Cornish’s supernatural detective series Lockwood & Co was in the top 10 British shows despite being canceled after just one season — a sign that Netflix is becoming increasingly ruthless over renewal decisions.

    There was also a place for the widely-admired Formula 1: Drive to Survive and UK producer Raw showed it could match the success of documentaries including The Tinder Swindler with its mini-series MH370: The Plane That Disappeared.

    The evergreen Peppa Pig remains a favorite with families around the world, while The Crown showed it has a long viewing tail. Season 5 of Peter Morgan’s drama had 76M hours viewed despite premiering on November 9, 2022.

    Reporting data in hours viewed gives no insight into how many accounts completed a title, or even engaged with it past the first episode. This is information that all streamers, especially Netflix, use to determine the success of their content.

    Title Hours Viewed
    1. Luther: The Fallen Sun 209M
    2. Black Mirror: Season 6 139M
    3. MH370: The Plane That Disappeared 118M
    4. Lockwood & Co.: Season 1 113M
    5. Formula 1: Drive to Survive: Season 5 90M
    6. The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die 83M
    7. Peppa Pig: Season 1 81M
    8. Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical 81M
    9. The Crown: Season 5 76M
    10. Treason: Limited Series 74M
    Source: Netflix

    Jake Kanter

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  • How The Crown’s William and Harry Mirrored the Real-Life Royals’ Relationship

    How The Crown’s William and Harry Mirrored the Real-Life Royals’ Relationship

    Having been born into the white-hot center of the modern British monarchy, princes William and Harry have arguably been documented more prolifically and publicly than any other humans on the planet. This resonated with Ed McVey and Luther Ford, particularly after The Crown cast them to play the brothers in the series’ final episodes—and Netflix presented each actor with robust research packets chronicling the princes’ lives.

    “At first it was quite overwhelming, because there’s been so much media surrounding them from birth,” says Ford of being cast as the younger son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. “They were born into a contractual obligation with the press.”

    It might have been hard to summon the sibling bond that comes from sharing such a rare experience. But McVey and Ford quickly forged their own brotherhood as a pair of unknown actors cast in two of the most anticipated roles on an unusually expensive, award-winning series that’s been viewed by at least 73 million people worldwide since it first aired in 2016.

    “It’s scary going onto a set like that,” Ford tells VF on a recent Zoom, recalling the intimidating scale and an ensemble cast that includes Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce, and Dominic West. Unlike most of their costars, McVey had never appeared onscreen—though he did study at drama school and perform onstage—and Ford had no previous acting credits. 

    Ford, who auditioned after his brother’s girlfriend saw a casting notice for The Crown on social media, recalls the first day that he and McVey filmed on the series. Their initial scene was shot at the series’ most royal location: Lancaster House, the 19th-century mansion neighboring Clarence House and St. James’s Palace that’s just a five-minute walk from Buckingham Palace. As if the location were not intimidating enough, the actors were performing a heated sibling conversation in front of about 60 supporting artists including Staunton, Price, and West—all of whom, for audio reasons, were miming conversations in the background.

    “Essentially the first day was them watching us do a scene, which was insane,” says Ford, calling it “the most pressurized position to put us in.” He adds with a laugh, “We could have just started with some shots of us walking.”

    Then came a scene that Ford describes as “so much worse”—a whispered conversation that William and Harry have in between singing hymns at the Queen Mother’s funeral. Again, he says he and McVey had to sing along to music that only they were hearing through earpieces while about 400 supporting artists inside a cathedral silently bore witness.

    “We were singing a cappella in front of the main cast. When your only aim is naturalism, and you’re doing something completely unnatural, it just feels wrong,” says Ford, noting that the finished scene thankfully “doesn’t reflect the pain” of filming.

    Ford and McVey had gotten together before production began—taking walks, talking about their characters at the pub. But it was the shared surreality of joining a celebrated ensemble series in its final season that sealed their camaraderie.

    “The experience of going through it together bonded us,” says Ford, before delivering a line that could accurately describe William and Harry’s relationship as well. “The situation felt so extreme that it was like, ‘Well, you are the only person in my position, and I’m the only person who’s in your position. So we’re bonded.’” In a separate conversation, McVey confirms that they gelled quickly: “If we didn’t like each other and were just on polite terms, the experience would not have been as good.”

    Julie Miller

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  • International Insider: Budget Blow For BBC; Red Sea Wraps Up; ‘Crown’s Off To Them

    International Insider: Budget Blow For BBC; Red Sea Wraps Up; ‘Crown’s Off To Them

    Good afternoon Insiders, here we go again with a busy old week in TV and film. Max Goldbart penning the newsletter. Read on and sign up here.

    Bad Times For The BBC

    BBC/Guy Levy

    Déjà vu: When you’ve been doing this for a little while, nothing gives off more of a sense of déjà vu than BBC budget woes. It always starts the same way. A downtrodden UK Prime Minister desperately seeks a distraction hook and latches on to the nation’s favorite (ish) broadcaster, in this case saying over the weekend that the public cannot afford the previously-agreed inflationary rise to the licence fee next year that would have seen the fee shoot up by nearly £15 ($18.90). Several days and one new chair appointment later, and the sentiment was confirmed by Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer, who said the fee will instead rise by just more than £10, as the government shifted the goalposts. While an extra £10 per person doesn’t look too bad at first glance, the move is set in context of two years’ worth of licence fee freeze, rampant inflation in production costs and stiff competition. Put bluntly, the BBC really needs more money. Unveiling yet another government review into the BBC’s future funding model, Frazer also pointed out that fewer people are paying the licence fee nowadays. This means that stiff hikes put more pressure on those who still do pay, but the BBC would likely flip the point and say fees should rise by even bigger amounts if fewer people are paying them. The BBC’s grave response said it all: “Our content budgets are now impacted, which in turn will have a significant impact on the wider creative sector across the UK.”

    “Destabilizing”: The move leaves the BBC with an estimated shortfall of £90M, alongside the hundreds of millions of savings it already needs to make, and more cuts in programing are no doubt coming — “Inevitably program expenditure will be cut first,” said one connected source. But insiders are not only peeved by the inevitable hit to the coffers. If the government is now going to decide annually how much the licence fee rises by — rather than sticking to a pre-agreed 11-year long inflationary rise — two insiders pointed out that this will make budgeting for the following year incredibly difficult. Not only that, but it also leaves the BBC more exposed to political agendas. There are intricacies to the changes to the inflationary measure but the government has effectively pegged this year’s rise to September 2023’s figure, as opposed to the average across the past year. It all feels a bit random. There is little the BBC technically can do but work may begin behind the scenes to mount a campaign to convince the government that it is in no one’s interests to continually mess around with the figure. Jake spoke to insiders and his analysis has more. The BBC statement’s stress on the impact on the “wider creative sector” felt pertinent.

    Musical chairs: Before the licence fee decision became official, there was the small matter of the new BBC Chair, who was unveiled Wednesday as British TV vet Samir Shah. Shah has previously spent years working for the BBC, runs an independent production company and has advised the government on numerous matters. He is well-liked and well-known, although perceived by some as a slightly surprising choice. Prior to the licence fee decision being announced by Frazer, one source close to the government said Shah had been working closely with the Culture, Media and Sport department of late and was “aligned” with these funding plans. He joins with a busy in-tray and with a need to regain trust in the BBC following the Richard Sharp debacle, which saw the previous Chair forced to resign over his role in a loan facilitation for Boris Johnson. And whether a help or a hindrance, Shah comes from a media family. His brother Mohit Bakaya runs BBC Radio 4 and his sister Monisha Shah is on the Ofcom content board.

    Cultural test: Elsewhere in public broadcaster land, ITV chose the moments after Frazer’s Commons speech to publish its long awaited review into Phillip Schofield, the former This Morning presenter who resigned after admitting to an affair with a much younger colleague. ITV may have been hoping licence fee woes would act as a distraction but the actual contents of the report didn’t appear to give the broadcaster too much to worry about. Following more than 50 interviews, the review’s author rejected the much-raised notion of a “toxic culture” on This Morning and scotched the idea that Schofield’s affair had been an open secret. It would have been a big problem for ITV had it been deemed the opposite. Jane Mulcahy KC listed a number of recommendations including the forging of a “talent charter” for high-profile presenters of Schofield’s ilk that would set “out key standards ITV expects to be upheld.” With Schofield’s co-host Holly Willoughby having also departed, ITV will be hoping it can close this particular chapter. The BBC’s equivalent — a report into behavior by newsreader Huw Edwards — publishes soon. And would you look at that, we’ve managed to go an entire Insider public broadcasting lead without mentioning Channel 4…

    Riding The Red Sea Wave

    The Red Sea International Film Festival 2023

    Getty

    Star power: Saudi Arabia’s third Red Sea International Film Festival handed out its prizes overnight with Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Khan’s horror picture In Flames winning Best Film. The jury led by Baz Luhrmann was joined on the red carpet by some serious star power in Halle Berry, Andrew Garfield, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicolas Cage and Henry Golding, among others. They followed in the wake of a raft of A-Listers making the trip to the festival’s Red Sea port home of Jeddah over the past week, including Johnny Depp, Will Smith and Chris Hemsworth. Beyond the glitz of the red-carpet galas at the festival’s Ritz Carlton hub, the ‘place to be’ was the Vox Cinema multiplex in Jeddah’s Red Sea Mall. The venue hosted a series of intimate In Conversations with the likes of Smith, Cage and Berry as well as packed out screenings of local and regional features. Highlights of the latter included the Saudi premiere of Riyadh-set social thriller Mandoob, which met with a rapturous response from a youthful audience. The drama is the latest feature from rising local studio Telfaz11, which scored a box office hit with free-wrestling comedy Sattar earlier this year. Mandoob, revolving around a night courier who falls foul of an alcohol smuggling ring, has all the ingredients to achieve similar success. Another Saudi highlight was Tawfik Alkaidi’s drama Norah, about a young girl growing up in a remote farming community in the 1990s, at the height of the crackdown on cinema and other arts. Luhrmann was spotted quietly slipping into the screening, reportedly watching the work for a second time. The film appealed to local and international spectators alike, with one critic in the room declaring it should be Saudi Oscar submission next year. Just six years after Saudi Arabia lifted its 35-year cinema ban, its filmmakers are coming into their own. Deadline was out in force at the festival this year and you can read all our coverage here.

    ‘Crown’s Off To Them

    Final hurrah: Whatever you think of The Crown and its various controversies, there is no doubt Netflix’s smash is one of the defining TV series of this generation. So it was no surprise that this week’s final season premiere hurrah was as glitzy as they come. Our roving International Editor-at-Large Baz Bamigboye strode the red carpet with queens, princes and princesses past and present, with an attendee list including but not limited to Imelda Staunton, Olivia Colman, Dominic West, Elizabeth Debicki, Jonathan Pryce, Gillian Anderson, Emma Corrin, Erin Doherty, Jason Watkins and Jonny Lee Miller. Speaking to Baz, current lead Staunton detailed how things had both changed and stayed the same following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II last year, explaining: “[The Queen] got on with it and I took great comfort in that.” Baz and his fellow Crown attendees were then treated to the premiere of the final episode, one that was slightly altered by creator Peter Morgan following the Queen’s death. It ended in rapturous applause. This doyen of British TV shows is almost at its end and, while its creative team are no doubt looking forward to leaving the limelight for a bit, it will certainly be missed. Check out the full picture gallery here.

    Spotlight On Singapore

    Marina Bay Sands Hotel at night

    Carola Frentzen/dpa (Photo by Carola Frentzen/picture alliance via Getty Images

    Reporting from AFT: Sara Merican was on the ground at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF) this week and there was plenty for readers to get their teeth into. High-profile attendees discussed the issues of the day, including those that dominated the agenda of the recent WGA/SAG negotiations such as AI and dealmaking. Chinese streaming giant iQiyi hailed the integration of artificial intelligence into its development and pitching processes (“We can turn 2,000,000 words in a novel into an 8,000-word document that outlines the plot and includes character analyses,” said Chief Content Officer Wang Xiaohui), while execs from some of the world’s biggest production houses posited that Hollywood dealmaking has become more reliant on the international market. These weighty proclamations came as a report into the Korean streaming industry found subs had grown once again in the nation to around 19 million, coming as the local market braces for the merger of Tving and Wavve as they battle to take on the big American players. And check out this killer scoop from Liz, who broke the news that Parasite production outfit Barunson E&A is moving into the burgeoning Indonesian film industry.

    Bye Bye Benjamin

    Image: Tom Jenkins/Getty Images

    “A proud Brummie and a proud Peaky Blinder”: Thoughts to the family of Benjamin Zephaniah, the iconic British poet and Peaky Blinders star who has died aged 65. Zephaniah was known for his radical and often deeply political poetry, his love for Jamaica, and his powerful and soulful delivery. He famously turned down an OBE, writing: “No way, Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.” He was simply an inspiration for original thinkers. Born into a poor family, he left school in Birmingham at age 13 unable to read or write but used a typewriter to teach himself both skills. At this point he was already performing poetry live, and his unique style helped him become an influential voice in Black politics and identity, leading to meetings with the likes of Nelson Mandela and The Wailers. Tributes came flooding in about a man who touched all corners of British society. In a statement issued to Deadline, Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy called Benjamin a “proud Brummie and a Peaky Blinder.”

    The Essentials

    Vertigo

    🌶️ Hot One: Danny Dyer is leading Marching Powder from new UK distributor True Brit; read our exclusive interview with True Brit’s Zygi Kamasa here.

    🌶️ Another: Netflix is poised to greenlight French and German versions of reality format Surviving Paradise.

    🌶️ Another one: Jean-Claude Van Damme is starring in Kill ‘Em All 2, which will shoot in Antigua from Jan.

    ⛰️ Summit: UK children’s TV bods will gather early next year to explore how to resuscitate the ailing sector.

    😠 Grant grumps: Curmudgeonly Love Actually lead said he “hated” playing an oompa-loompa in Wonka.

    🏕️ Festival latest: Cannes Market has named Switzerland as 2024’s Country of Honor.

    🏕️ More festivals: EFM boss Dennis Ruh talked us through changes at the Berlinale Series Market.

    ✂️ Cuts: Canada’s CBC/Radio-Canada is laying off 10% of its staff and the nation’s media guild is “shocked.”

    🖕🏼 Excuse me?: A BBC News presenter was caught giving the middle finger to camera in an on-air gaffe.

    🤝 Done deal: Letterkenny creator Jared Keeso signed a first-of-its-kind content pact with Crave & New Metric.

    🖊️ Signed up: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, director of Kill, put pen to paper with WME.

    🏪 Setting up shop: Hollywood’s The Gotham Group outside the U.S.

    🍿 Box office: Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been confirmed for a theatrical release in Japan.

    🌎 Global breakout: Nancy was on hand to spotlight Thai horror Tee Yod.

    🖼️ First look: At The Traitors UK Season 2, launching January 3.

    Melanie Goodfellow contributed to this week’s Insider

    Max Goldbart

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  • Annual Critics Choice Awards TV Nominations: The Crown, Loki, The Last of Us, and Succession lead the way

    Annual Critics Choice Awards TV Nominations: The Crown, Loki, The Last of Us, and Succession lead the way

    The 28th Annual Critics Choice Awards TV Nominations are out for the public to see. It’s that time of the year again, the award season is starting in full force, with some of your favorite series about to get the recognition they deserve for entertaining you throughout the year. Shows like Succession, MCU’s Loki, The Crown, and the widely popular The Last of Us were always expected to make a splash during this season, but there are some underrated series that punched above their weight. Keep scrolling to see the full nominations list.

    BEST DRAMA SERIES

    The Crown (Netflix)

    The Diplomat (Netflix)

    The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

    Loki (Disney+)

    The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)

    Succession (HBO/Max)

    Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (HBO/Max)

    BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

    Kieran Culkin – Succession (HBO/Max)

    Tom Hiddleston – Loki (Disney+)

    Timothy Olyphant – Justified: City Primeval (FX)

    Pedro Pascal – The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

    Ramón Rodríguez – Will Trent (ABC)

    Jeremy Strong – Succession (HBO/Max)

    BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

    Jennifer Aniston – The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

    Aunjanue Ellis – Justified: City Primeval (FX)

    Bella Ramsey – The Last of Us (HBO/Max)

    Keri Russell – The Diplomat (Netflix)

    Sarah Snook – Succession (HBO/Max)

    Reese Witherspoon – The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

    Khalid Abdalla – The Crown (Netflix)

    Billy Crudup – The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

    Ron Cephas Jones – Truth Be Told (Apple TV+)

    Matthew MacFadyen – Succession (HBO/Max)

    Ke Huy Quan – Loki (Disney+)

    Rufus Sewell – The Diplomat (Netflix)

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

    Nicole Beharie – The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

    Elizabeth Debicki – The Crown (Netflix)

    Sophia Di Martino – Loki (Disney+)

    Celia Rose Gooding – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)

    Karen Pittman – The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

    Christina Ricci – Yellowjackets (Showtime)

    BEST COMEDY SERIES

    Abbott Elementary (ABC)

    Barry (HBO/Max)

    The Bear (FX)

    The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video)

    Poker Face (Peacock)

    Reservation Dogs (FX)

    Shrinking (Apple TV+)

    What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

    BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

    Bill Hader – Barry (HBO | Max)

    Steve Martin – Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

    Kayvan Novak – What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

    Drew Tarver – The Other Two (HBO/Max)

    Jeremy Allen White – The Bear (FX)

    D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai – Reservation Dogs (FX)

    BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

    Rachel Brosnahan – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video)

    Quinta Brunson – Abbott Elementary (ABC)

    Ayo Edebiri – The Bear (FX)

    Bridget Everett – Somebody Somewhere (HBO/Max)

    Devery Jacobs – Reservation Dogs (FX)

    Natasha Lyonne – Poker Face (Peacock)

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

    Phil Dunster – Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

    Harrison Ford – Shrinking (Apple TV+)

    Harvey Guillén – What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

    James Marsden – Jury Duty (Amazon Freevee)

    Ebon Moss-Bachrach – The Bear (FX)

    Henry Winkler – Barry (HBO/Max)

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

    Paulina Alexis – Reservation Dogs (FX)

    Alex Borstein – The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video)

    Janelle James – Abbott Elementary (ABC)

    Sheryl Lee Ralph – Abbott Elementary (ABC)

    Meryl Streep – Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

    Jessica Williams – Shrinking (Apple TV+)

    BEST LIMITED SERIES

    Beef (Netflix)

    Daisy Jones & the Six (Prime Video)

    Fargo (FX)

    Fellow Travelers (Showtime)

    Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)

    Love & Death (HBO/Max)

    A Murder at the End of the World (FX)

    A Small Light (National Geographic)

    BEST MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION

    The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (Showtime)

    Finestkind (Paramount+)

    Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie (Peacock)

    No One Will Save You (Hulu)

    Quiz Lady (Hulu)

    Reality (HBO | Max)

    BEST ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION

    Matt Bomer – Fellow Travelers (Showtime)

    Tom Holland – The Crowded Room (Apple TV+)

    David Oyelowo – Lawmen: Bass Reeves (Paramount+)

    Tony Shalhoub – Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie (Peacock)

    Kiefer Sutherland – The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (Showtime)

    Steven Yeun – Beef (Netflix)

    BEST ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION

    Kaitlyn Dever – No One Will Save You (Hulu)

    Brie Larson – Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)

    Bel Powley – A Small Light (National Geographic)

    Sydney Sweeney – Reality (HBO/Max)

    Juno Temple – Fargo (FX)

    Ali Wong – Beef (Netflix)

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION

    Jonathan Bailey – Fellow Travelers (Showtime)

    Taylor Kitsch – Painkiller (Netflix)

    Jesse Plemons – Love & Death (HBO/Max)

    Lewis Pullman – Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)

    Liev Schreiber – A Small Light (National Geographic)

    Justin Theroux – White House Plumbers (HBO/Max)

    BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION

    Maria Bello – Beef (Netflix)

    Billie Boullet – A Small Light (National Geographic)

    Willa Fitzgerald – The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

    Aja Naomi King – Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)

    Mary McDonnell – The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

    Camila Morrone – Daisy Jones & the Six (Prime Video)

    BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE SERIES

    Bargain (Paramount+)

    The Glory (Netflix)

    The Good Mothers (Hulu)

    The Interpreter of Silence (Hulu)

    Lupin (Netflix)

    Mask Girl (Netflix)

    Moving (Hulu)

    BEST ANIMATED SERIES

    Bluey (Disney+)

    Bob’s Burgers (Fox)

    Harley Quinn (HBO/Max)

    Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Netflix)

    Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+)

    Young Love (HBO/Max)

    BEST TALK SHOW

    The Graham Norton Show (BBC America)

    Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)

    The Kelly Clarkson Show (NBC)

    Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO/ Max)

    Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC)

    The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS)

    BEST COMEDY SPECIAL

    Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and the Pool (Netflix)

    Alex Borstein: Corsets & Clown Suits (Prime Video)

    John Early: Now More Than Ever (HBO/Max)

    John Mulaney: Baby J (Netflix)

    Trevor Noah: Where Was I (Netflix)

    Wanda Sykes – I’m an Entertainer (Netflix)

    ALSO READ: Song Hye Kyo’s The Glory and Nana’s Mask Girl secure nominations at 29th Critics’ Choice Awards

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  • The Prince Harry Memoir Details That Make It Into The Crown’s Final Episodes

    The Prince Harry Memoir Details That Make It Into The Crown’s Final Episodes

    There were Spare revelations that the series ignored too. The memoir debuted midway through filming the final season, so production was well underway when Harry’s bombshells dropped. Sulzberger recalls that the team was filming scenes set at Princess Diana’s funeral inside Westminster Abbey when they got ahold of the book, and one such detail—specifically, that Harry did not cry at his mother’s funeral—went ignored. (In the book, Harry claims he only cried about his mother’s death once, at her burial.)

    “We were already filming, and the director was like, our young actor [Fflyn Edwards] is weeping—so sad,” she recalls, noting that the series includes a shot of a young Harry crying. “You just have to say, ‘Okay, that’s a directorial decision.’”

    Sulzberger notes that memoirs can be tricky when it comes to fact-checking, so she was not particularly precious about hewing to Spare.

    “Whether or not Harry is remembering that moment exactly as it was, or he’s an older man remembering that he had to bottle things up,” she says, “it’s hard to use those details exactly as he explored them.” As a researcher, Sulzberger says she takes autobiographies and memoirs with a grain of salt: “They provide you with their personal perspective and intimate detail, but you have to also understand that it is a single-perspective work.” With Spare, Sulzberger points out “that it was written by a 38-year-old man [partially] about his years as a child. So those memories—especially of the bits we were interested in—may not be as pure as they would’ve been if he had been asked to write down in the moment a diary entry of what happened that day.”

    One memoir element that is echoed in The Crown’s final season is the double standard with which Buckingham Palace operated in terms of protecting the Wales siblings from the press. In the final episodes, William begins university at St. Andrews after the palace has struck up a press deal to help give the future heir privacy in his days as a student. Meanwhile, Harry’s use of marijuana as a teenager becomes front-page news. In Spare, the actual prince remembered the moment he discovered the palace was okay with this media narrative after a front-page headline screamed “Harry’s Drugs Shame” in 2002 when he was about 18. 

    Surely, I said, Pa will do something. Stop [the editor] […] Pa’s office had decided on…a different approach. Rather than telling the editor to call off the dogs, the Palace was opting to play ball with her. They were going full Neville Chamberlain. […] No more the unfaithful husband, Pa would now be presented to the world as the harried single dad coping with a drug-addled son.

    Julie Miller

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  • Diana’s Ghost Might Actually Come Back to Punish Those Responsible for The Crown Season 6

    Diana’s Ghost Might Actually Come Back to Punish Those Responsible for The Crown Season 6

    Princess Diana’s life, of course, has always been the stuff that soap opera fodder is made of. But usually, that “fodder” has been given the “prestige drama” treatment. Most recently, in a movie format with Kristen Stewart playing the part of Diana in Pablo Larraín’s 2021 film, Spencer. But at least Larraín had the good sense to commence his movie with the warning, “A fable from a true tragedy.” Because, in effect, that’s what any attempt to make a film or show about Diana’s life (particularly her “later years”) is. That has become increasingly true with products like The Crown, which seem to enjoy an especial emphasis on who/“what” she was during the brief period when she was officially divorced from Prince Charles. Sadly, Diana scarcely got to experience a full year as a free woman before the car crash that would take her life. 

    The first part of The Crown’s sixth season (because, unfortunately, they want to drag it out in two parts) wastes no time in commencing with the tragedy right away, for viewers are made to understand that it’s August 31, 1997 with the opening shot trained on the Eiffel Tower—this after panning upward from a man leaving his apartment to walk his dog. It is this man who will serve as the anchor for the crash scene, with his literal “man on the street” perspective serving to highlight that, even if Diana were an “ordinary mortal” (which she technically was after being stripped of her royal title), this “incident” would have been regarded with shock and outrage. Which is precisely how the dog-walking man views it when he calls emergency services to report the crash. Though the audience already knows how it all built up to this senseless moment, writer and show creator Peter Morgan wants to take us through the usual structural rigmarole that goes hand in hand with Diana: starting with her death and then “taking us back” to the moments before it all went so horribly awry.

    Having already written about this death with a better angle in 2006, when he received acclaim for The Queen’s screenplay (complete with an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay), Morgan is beating a dead horse in more ways than one with this rehashing. And perhaps trying to make season six as “different” as possible from the way he told the story of her death in The Queen. Well, that it certainly is…most notably in using the ultra-cheesy trope of wielding “Diana’s ghost” (though Morgan insists, “I never imagined it as Diana’s ‘ghost’ in the traditional sense. It was her continuing to live vividly in the minds of those she has left behind…”) to help give closure to the ones who were the biggest assholes to her: Elizabeth and Charles. Obviously, in the former’s case, Morgan wants to show respect for a dead royal, and, in the latter’s case, doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of a king by presenting him as having blood on his hands. Instead, Diana consistently comes across as the trainwreck, the one who “did it to herself” in the end. This much is underscored at every turn throughout all four episodes of season six’s “part one.” Even in little details where Morgan can take more creative license with dialogue that paints Diana as “addicted to drama.”

    In fact, there’s a scene of her on the horn with her therapist, Susie Orbach (the name of Diana’s real-life shrink), just so we can witness Morgan-as-Orbach chastising her with the lines, “Let’s face it, this [relationship with Dodi] is just drama again. Drama is adrenaline. Addictive. And in many ways, the opposite of adult behavior.” Referring to her latest “boyfriend,” a still-engaged (as far as his fiancée, Kelly Fisher, was concerned) Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), Orbach wants, like so many others in the Royal Family, for Diana to stop being, well, “so dramatic.” Not only that, but to stop courting the drama that already surrounds her without her “trying” to cultivate more. It’s a take on the People’s Princess that isn’t exactly new (in addition to billing her as someone with persecutory delusions). But it is one that feels increasingly in poor taste amid a more theoretically “modern” climate. One in which it’s no longer acceptable to paint women as the villains who “asked for it.” And that is often how Diana comes across in this final season. 

    Which is why something about Morgan’s representation of Diana and the circumstances leading up to her death feel more than somewhat fishy. As though The Crown itself paid him off to keep the narrative of Diana’s inevitable self-destruction going. And with Charles as the current monarch, his “dashing” portrayal is suspiciously over-the-top. This includes Diana’s specter informing him on his private plane, “Thank you for how you were in the hospital. So raw, broken…and handsome.” Cue vomiting here (no allusion to Diana’s bulimia intended). And yeah, what about that scene in the hospital of Charles? The one where he’s wailing over her body so that everyone else in the building can hear it. As if. Not only because Charles himself simply wasn’t that way, but because of the old British adage about always maintaining a “stiff upper lip,” most especially in public. Therefore, Morgan’s additional very “creative” (read: ass-kissing) license with this scene seems to indicate his further not-so-coincidental affection for the new king of late. For, as Morgan himself commented in an interview with Variety about season six, “I probably am a monarchist, but out of appreciation for what they do when they do it well. I think if we’re all adults, we would say that the system makes no sense and is unjust in the modern democracy. But I’m not sure Britain would be Britain without a monarchy.” Ah, one of those. A man who would sooner imagine the end of Britain than the end of its monarchy. We’ll see where that takes the country in the years to come…

    And so, as a self-proclaimed royalist (where once he claimed not to be), that sentiment of Morgan’s has been rather apparent throughout The Crown, as the show mutated into an evermore royal puff piece, particularly toward Charles in the episodes that aired leading up to his real-life coronation. This extended in casting someone much better-looking (Dominic West) in season five and season six to play him, as well as portraying him as someone with viable breakdancing moves in “The Way Ahead.” In the actual footage, Charles looks far less at home on the dance floor among what The Crown title card calls “disadvantaged youths” (that’s polite Queen’s English for “Black people”). Indeed, where Charles’ charity work is made to appear dignified in the series, Diana’s is eventually made to appear as yet another manifestation of her attention-seeking love for spectacle. This angle, spun by Morgan, is apparent when her relationship with Fayed becomes more central to her press conference in Bosnia about landmines than the victims of the landmines themselves (this, by the way, is another fictionalization on Morgan’s part, as the photo of “the kiss” between her and Fayed wasn’t printed until after that conference). As though, again, it’s somehow Diana’s doing that this is the reaction to her. As though, in the end, she “sought it out” with her behavior. Her “recklessness”—not just in general, but in matters of love. Yet it was clear there wasn’t any real “love” between her and Fayed. Or at least, that’s how The Crown paints it, with Fayed’s interest in her largely driven by his father’s pressure to “acquire” her like another British asset for their portfolio. 

    As we all know without watching The Crown, that “acquisition” didn’t happen. Nor did the proposal Dodi botched in a room at The Ritz-Carlton, with all signs pointing to the fact that Dodi would not have proposed in the hotel before they headed back to his place on the night of their death. In truth, the only “accuracy” about their relationship appears to be the idea that they were both “using each other” for various reasons. And yes, in all likelihood, things probably wouldn’t have lasted romantically between them. If one can even call what they had a “true romance” as opposed to just a “bad” one (if for no other reason than being perpetually hounded by paparazzi, as Fayed was painted in the press as an “ill-advised choice” [to put it as non-racistly as possible on behalf of the Brits] for Diana). 

    With part two of the season set to refocus more on Elizabeth and Charles (yawn), there are also reports that the fallout from Diana’s death in terms of how it affects William and Harry will be a factor as well. Whatever the case, it’s surely got to beat seeing, once again, the reductive bastardization of Diana’s final years. Something that has never quite been “warmly received” by those who revere the princess (one such other example being 2013’s simply-titled Diana starring Naomi Watts in the titular role). Least of all when she’s presented as some kind of ghost with predilections for blowing smoke up the Royal Family’s ass…which, of course, was never her style.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • ‘The Crown’ Rules Over Netflix TV Top 10; ‘The Killer’ Takes No. 1 For Film

    ‘The Crown’ Rules Over Netflix TV Top 10; ‘The Killer’ Takes No. 1 For Film

    Audiences were eagerly awaiting the final season of The Crown.

    Part 1 of Season 6 debuted on November 16, quickly racking up 11.1M views in its first few days on Netflix. That was enough to boost it to No. 1 on the English-language TV charts for the week of November 13 to 19. According to Netflix, the new episodes were No. 1 in 44 countries and among the Top 10 in 85.

    The final episodes are set to debut on December 14, meaning that The Crown is likely to appear in the Top 10 through the end of the year.

    In second place last week was Matt Rife’s new stand-up special, Natural Selection. The special managed 7.4M views in its debut week. That was followed by All The Light We Cannot See, which was down from first place the week prior, with an additional 5.7M views. Netflix says the World War II limited series reached the Top 10 in 93 countries.

    The TV list was rounded out with some unscripted content, including Escaping Twin Flames and Season 7 of Selling Sunset.

    As for the film side of things, David Fincher’s The Killer stole first place for the second consecutive week with 22.3M views — by far the most-watched title this week. In just two weeks, the film has racked up about 50M views, putting it well on its way to Netflix’s most popular list. Extraction 2 is currently in tenth place with just over 134M views in its first 91 days.

    Best.Christmas.Ever! also made its debut on the Top 10, coming in at No. 2 with 16.3M views.

    Returning to the list were romantic thriller Locked In (UK) in fourth place (5.1M views), Paw Patrol: The Movie in eighth place (2.7M views) and Pain Hustlers, starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans, in ninth place (2.6M views). 

    Katie Campione

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  • The Crown: Elizabeth Debicki Searched for Joy in Princess Diana’s Final Moments

    The Crown: Elizabeth Debicki Searched for Joy in Princess Diana’s Final Moments

    Princess Diana’s impending death looms over the first three episodes of The Crown’s sixth and final season, which creep through the weeks leading up to her fatal car crash in Paris. There’s her controversial trip to St.-Tropez with Prince William and Prince Harry; her continuing cat and mouse game with press; her final vacation with fling Dodi Fayed; and her frightening car chases with frenzied paparazzi.

    “There are so many layers to shooting a season like this,” says Elizabeth Debicki, who brought Diana to eerie life in season five, and who reimagines her last moments in season six. “The interpretation [of Diana’s final weeks] carries a historical weight that is very real for many people, but you’re doing an imagining of it,” she says, referencing series mastermind Peter Morgan, who has written every episode of the drama’s six seasons. “That complexity led me, as an actor, to go really into the micro moments.”

    The Australian actor explains that she chose to “play against an ending that was this inevitable tragedy.” She portrayed Diana across seven years of her life and says that her research of the royal led her to “seek out moments where there was this joy, this confidence, this sense of freedom” to Diana. 

    Part of the tragedy of the real-life Diana’s death is that, at the age of 36, the princess was finally hitting her stride after years of insecurity. But then again, says Debicki, “there was a massive evolution in so many areas of her life” in those final months.

    Ahead, Debicki walks VF through filming the princess’s last days—discussing Diana’s leopard-print PR revenge, her uncertainty playing “ghost Diana,” and what she was thinking while filming the late royal’s final moments.

    Vanity Fair: What evolutions did you see in Diana between The Crown’s fifth and sixth seasons?

    Elizabeth Debicki: One of them was a sense of, what are her priorities now? What does life look like now that she is not an HRH inside the royal family? What does that mean in terms of how she can relate to people and move through the world? And also obviously the humanitarian work that ended up happening off the back of the divorce. Suddenly she seemed to be more free, albeit she faced lots of backlash to these really courageous decisions about doubling down on her humanitarian work. There’s a confidence…the choices that are being made seem to be coming from a genuine and slightly freer place inside of her.

    There were complications and contradictions in her decisions too, especially in terms of her relationship with the press and her decision to go on vacation with a controversial figure like Mohamed Al Fayed.

    The first episode of this season [which chronicles Diana’s trip to St.-Tropez with William, Harry, and the Fayeds], for me, was about Diana being a mother and wanting her kids to have a nice vacation. That’s what I play. It’s a very simple thing to want, but in this circumstance, for her, an extremely complicated thing to obtain. There’s press, there’s media attention, there’s people judging the decisions made or not made to go on a vacation with Al Fayed. 

    That’s what I mean by narrowing it down to the really micro moments and then playing against the end. It was important for me to show the audience that there were moments of real joy and lightness in those last weeks. That’s also who I learned her to be throughout so much of her life. There was this real commitment to create those moments of joy and levity for her children, amongst so many other complicated factors.

    Julie Miller

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  • Prince Harry Won’t Watch The Crown’s Last Season

    Prince Harry Won’t Watch The Crown’s Last Season

    Despite what you may have read, Prince Harry will apparently not be tuning into the final season of The Crown. Per Deadline, the Duke of Sussex is sitting out this season of The Crown due to the “sensitive nature” of its subject matter, which follows the last days in the life of his mother, Princess Diana. 

    On Thursday, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that Prince Harry would be watching the final season of The Crown, with the Telegraph’s royals editor Victoria Ward adding that a friend of Harry’s may pre-watch The Crown to “save him any unnecessary trauma.” However, a source close to Harry told Deadline that contrary to prior reports, the Duke of Sussex will not be tuning in for the final season of Peter Morgan’s Netflix series. A source confirmed Deadline’s report to Vanity Fair.

    Prince Harry was just twelve years old when his mother and Dodi Fayed died in a fatal car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. The first half of the show’s sixth season follows the people’s princess in the last weeks of her life and features the spectral presence of Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, having conversations with both Charles (Dominic West) and Queen Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) from beyond the grave.  

    A source close to Harry told Vanity Fair that neither Harry nor his wife, Meghan Markle, were consulted on this season of The Crown, which features a young Prince Harry, played by Fflyn Edwards. Morgan has said previously that he did not read Harry’s memoir, Spare, while writing the season, and Netflix chief Ted Sarandos told Variety that he has never discussed The Crown with Harry, who has a development deal with the streamer. While Harry is opting not to watch this season, Vanity Fair’s source says that he harbors no ill will towards Morgan or Netflix. (Prince Harry and Archewell Media declined to comment.)

    The same apparently can’t be said for his older brother, Prince William. After it was reported that the final season of The Crown would include an apparition of Princess Diana, a source close to William, who was just fifteen when Diana died, told the Daily Beast that the heir to the throne “won’t watch it” but will be “totally sickened by it.” 

    “It’s incredibly hurtful to have his mother exploited over and over again in this tawdry fashion by Netflix,” the source added. 

    A source close to William and Harry’s father, King Charles, and his wife, Queen Camilla, told the Daily Beast that the royal couple is reportedly unconcerned by ghost Diana’s presence on The Crown. They “don’t really care,” said the source. “It’s pretty ridiculous at this stage anyway. I think the program has lost the credibility it had in the early years.”

    Prince Harry has watched and enjoyed previous seasons of The Crown. In 2021, he told James Corden on The Late Late Show that he was “way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing stories written about my family or my wife,” and that the series is “is obviously fiction.” More recently, Harry appeared on The Late Show and joked to host Stephen Colbert that he fact-checks episodes with a pen and paper while watching.

    Chris Murphy

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  • As Diana Reaches Her Final Days, ‘The Crown’ Does Too

    As Diana Reaches Her Final Days, ‘The Crown’ Does Too

    Perhaps it has been long enough that a televised reenactment, and an imagining, of Diana Spencer’s last days can play as solemnly respectful rather than ghoulish. That is the hope of the first four episodes of the final season of The Crown (Netflix, November 16), Peter Morgan’s sprawling series about Queen Elizabeth II and her familial cohort. Last season, we were introduced to adult Diana, played with poise and the slightest of winks by Elizabeth Debicki. She was a breath of fresh air in this (deliberately, at times) musty show, and now we must watch her die. 

    To be fair, The Crown does not show us anything gory. We simply see, in the season’s opening scene, a Mercedes go zooming into a Paris tunnel, chased by paparazzi on motorbikes, and then hear a crash. The first three episodes then flash back to Diana’s final weeks, focusing particularly on her budding romance with Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla)—himself the scion of a proud and wealthy family who is forever in search of an autonomous place in the world. He and Diana are kindred in that way, a connection that The Crown susses out persuasively. 

    It helps that Debicki and Abdalla are so good in the roles, honing these profiles of famous dead people into tangible human beings. The Crown shades their relationship with sad nuance: This was not true love, it argues, but rather a fling that might have led to a beautiful friendship. Had, of course, the predations of the media (and, by extension, us) not chased them into ruin. That would be enough of a conclusion to draw from all of this: that Diana and Dodi were victims of a terrible but ineffable thing, a kind of collective force for which no one person is to blame. 

    And yet the show does gesture quite heavily toward Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw), Dodi’s domineering billionaire father, who—according to Morgan’s scripts, anyway—orchestrated his son’s romance with Diana in the hopes that a connection to the royal family, however tenuous, might bring him closer to public esteem, and citizenship, within the UK. While it is true that Mohamed was rather consumed with securing stature in Britain, The Crown perhaps too closely maps that drive next to the death of his son and Diana, suggesting a causality that threatens to turn Mohamed into some sinister, hubristic machinator, the center figure of a Greek tragedy. 

    Courtesy of Daniel Escale/Netflix.

    There are some racial undertones to all this, as there was in the coverage of the Fayeds in real life. Over its past five seasons, The Crown has proven pretty ill-equipped to handle the royals’ relationship to race, and its own relationship to it. This framing of Mohamed does not improve matters. But the show, thankfully, pulls back before it has made him an outright villain. It’s appreciated that The Crown does pay careful mind to the fact that it wasn’t just Diana who died in Paris, and Daw’s textured performance is so compelling that we ultimately feel more empathy for a man mourning his son than we do any kind of scorn. 

    Richard Lawson

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  • ‘The Crown’ Accused Of Fabricating Genesis Of Princess Diana & Dodi Fayed’s Fateful Romance

    ‘The Crown’ Accused Of Fabricating Genesis Of Princess Diana & Dodi Fayed’s Fateful Romance

    SPOILER ALERT: This news story features details from Season 6 of The Crown

    EXCLUSIVE: Netflix series The Crown has been accused of fabricating Mohamed Al-Fayed’s role in playing matchmaker to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.

    Season 6 has dropped on Netflix and the opening episodes chronicle the burgeoning romance between Diana and Dodi in the sun-soaked surroundings of the Mediterranean.

    Peter Morgan‘s lavish royal drama repeatedly implies that the relationship was engineered by Al-Fayed, the late Egyptian business mogul, as part of his ambition to obtain British citizenship.

    This allegation was refuted in 1997 and Michael Cole, Al-Fayed’s former spokesperson, has gone on record again to deny that his ex-boss was involved in Diana and Dodi’s fateful romance.

    Cole told Deadline that he never witnessed or had knowledge of Al-Fayed engineering the relationship, or playing a role in making the tryst known to the entire world by commissioning photos of the couple.

    “Netflix and the production company describe The Crown as ‘dramatized fiction’ and I am not going to disagree with that characterization. That means it is made up,” he said.

    The opening episode of the final season of The Crown features Al-Fayed (Salim Dau) re-introducing Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi (Khalid Abdalla) on his yacht, Jonikal.

    Al-Fayed did indeed invite Diana and her sons, Princes William and Harry, to his St. Tropez villa in the summer of 1997 and it was reported at the time that Dodi joined them on Jonikal.

    But the boat provides a precinct for The Crown writer Morgan to apply some creative license, according to Cole, Al-Fayed’s former press secretary.

    In one scene, Al-Fayed instructs Dodi to woo Diana, saying that he has put “her on a plate” and that a relationship between the two would “finally make me proud of you.”

    In Episode 2, Al-Fayed orders a maid on his yacht to tell him if Dodi and Diana are “intimate.” After being informed that they are sharing a bed, the Netflix drama suggests that Al-Fayed commissioned Italian photographer Mario Brenna to take the famous photos of Diana and Dodi in a private clinch on Jonikal.

    “How do I find a good paparazzi photographer,” Dau’s Al-Fayed asks his assistant. “Not just any idiot with a long lens. I want the best photographer on the Mediterranean.”

    In reality, there are conflicting accounts about how Brenna managed to snap the images, from which he reportedly earned $5M.

    Last year, British journalist Tina Brown wrote in her book, The Palace Papers, that Diana herself tipped off Brenna to “send a taunting message” to her lover Hasnat Khan.

    In 1997, The Independent newspaper reported that Brenna happened to spot Al-Fayed’s boat off the coast of Sardinia as he was in the area on other assignments.

    Cole said the suggestion of Al-Fayed’s involvement in the relationship was “total nonsense.” He added: “Mohamed was a remarkable man in many ways. He was delighted that his eldest son and his family’s dear friend Diana were together. But making two people fall in love with each other? That was beyond even his great talents.”

    Al-Fayed died in August at the age of 94. Cole said he suspects that his former boss, who was known for speaking his mind, would have had “quite a lot to say” about The Crown‘s version of events.

    Diana and Dodi died in a car accident weeks after romance blossomed between the duo. The crash is depicted off-camera in the opening moments of The Crown’s first Season 6 episode.

    Netflix had no comment.

    Jake Kanter

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  • Did Princess Diana show off to paparazzi on Camilla’s birthday?

    Did Princess Diana show off to paparazzi on Camilla’s birthday?

    Princess Diana’s relationships with the press, the paparazzi and Camilla Parker Bowles (now Queen Camilla) filled pages of news reports in the weeks before her untimely death in 1997, a period that has now been dramatized in the newly released episodes of Netflix‘s hit royal show, The Crown.

    Portrayed by actress Elizabeth Debicki in the first four episodes of the final season, Diana is shown developing her romance with movie producer and Harrods heir Dodi Fayed, beginning with their meeting on a vacation at the home of his father, Mohamed Al Fayed, in July 1997.

    In the show, Diana tells her elder son, Prince William (Rufus Kampa), that she wanted to take the vacation to St. Tropez to be out of England while Prince Charles (Dominic West) hosted a lavish 50th birthday party for Camilla (Olivia Williams).

    Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in St. Tropez in Season 6 of “The Crown,” 2023, and (inset) Camilla in England on June 13, 1996. Camilla’s 50th birthday party is included in “The Crown.”
    Netflix/Dave Benett/Getty Images

    In one scene, Diana is shown on Camilla’s birthday sailing out on a speedboat to speak to the press and pose for the paparazzi, who had rented vessels to stake out the villa at which she was staying.

    The show then depicts Charles being angered that his ex-wife’s display pushed coverage of Camilla’s birthday off the front pages.

    Newsweek looks at the real story behind The Crown‘s portrayal of Princess Diana‘s summer vacation while Camilla turned 50.

    Was Princess Diana on Vacation for Camilla’s 50th Birthday Celebrations?

    Princess Diana took a summer vacation with Prince William and Prince Harry from July 11-20, 1997, at the home of billionaire Harrods department store owner Mohamed Al Fayed in St. Tropez, France.

    The royals were closely followed by members of the press and paparazzi for the length of their stay at the private villa, known as the Castle St. Therese. The villa looked out to sea, where photographers had rented boats to capture images of the royals, which appeared in British and world newspapers.

    Camilla Parker Bowles turned 50 on July 17, while Diana and the princes were on vacation. Camilla had been romantically linked to Charles for a number of years and was widely accepted to be his long-term partner at this point.

    In 1995, Diana publicly commented on her then-husband’s affair with Camilla, saying: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

    The prince and princess formally divorced in the summer of 1996.

    For Camilla’s 50th birthday, Charles hosted a lavish birthday party for her at his Highgrove country estate in Gloucestershire. No members of the royal family attended.

    "The Crown" Camilla 50th Birthday
    Dominic West as Prince Charles and Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles in Season 6 of “The Crown.” On July 18, 1997, Charles threw Camilla a 50th birthday party at Highgrove, while Princess Diana was on vacation.
    NETFLIX

    Did Princess Diana Show Off to Paparazzi on Camilla’s Birthday?

    While on vacation, Princess Diana was accused in the press of attempting to steal attention from Camilla’s birthday by courting the paparazzi.

    During her time at the Al Fayed villa, Diana was photographed wearing a series of striking swimsuits on the private beach and taking part in jet ski races with her sons in front of the paparazzi, who had rented boats moored to watch the royals.

    On July 14, three days before Camilla’s birthday and four days before the party hosted by Charles, Diana shocked the press by appearing in a speedboat that approached them, passing the paparazzi to stop by a yacht on which tabloid reporters from Rupert Murdoch‘s Mirror Group Newspapers were stationed.

    The princess was wearing a leopard-print swimsuit and was photographed speaking to the journalists, images of which ran alongside the news scoops they were given in the next day’s papers.

    According to the reports filed by the reporters she spoke to, Diana asked for privacy while on vacation, revealing that William and Harry had encouraged her to move away from Britain to escape the press intrusion into her life. She also said she couldn’t be expected stay behind locked doors at Kensington Palace.

    She also famously told the journalists that she was passionately working on her landmines charity work and that: “You will get a big surprise with the next thing I do.”

    Contrary to The Crown‘s portrayal of the interaction, it didn’t take place on Camilla’s birthday or the day of her birthday party.

    Princess Diana in St Tropez
    Princess Diana in a leopard-print swimsuit in St. Tropez, France, in July 1997. The paparazzi photographed the royals from boats moored near the Al Fayed villa.
    Anwar Hussein/Getty Images

    Diana did, however, make a media splash on Camilla’s birthday. On July 17, the princess was once again photographed wearing her leopard-print swimsuit in St. Tropez.

    On the day of Camilla’s party hosted by Charles, July 18, the Daily Mirror in Britain published the revealing images of Diana by the water with a satirical headline, reading: “Dear Camilla, This will keep you off the front page. Happy Birthday & Breast Wishes love Diana.”

    The Crown Season 6 Part 1 is available to stream on Netflix now.

    James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.

    Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We’d love to hear from you.