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The Crown writer Peter Morgan has revealed that working with Netflix was a breath of fresh air – because they didn’t want to “crush” him.

The film and TV writer said: “I feel supported and liberated by Netflix. There are not legions of script editors who crush you – it’s an executive free zone.

“I am really committed to reaching final cut on each episode in complete partnership with the director, on our own in an executive-free zone.

"Where else does that happen in film or television? It’s kind of heavenly. They don’t micromanage and they don’t interfere.”

He said the fact that Netflix bosses don’t know as much as him when it comes to royalty was also a plus as he set about making the 10-part first season, rumoured to have a budget of £100million.

(Image: PA)

“I think it really helps that they’re American and this subject is so English - they don’t think they know better than us. We can just go all sort of English on them and they just shut up.”

Morgan, whose previous projects include movies The Queen and The Damned United plus ITV series The Jury and Channel 4 film The Deal, believes that audiences will soon expect all projects to be box-set length.

“We’re slightly drifting away from cinema. In the future, your Star Wars and your Bonds, we’ll be watching them across 10 hours, the storytelling will change.”

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Production on The Crown is now six months into the second series and Morgan is already planning the third, which will involve a total recast as the Queen hits her 50s.

He confessed that Matt Smith ’s agent had been “a bit tricky” during negotiations for the actor to play the Duke of Edinburgh but by then Morgan had decided he was “the only one” he wanted to play Prince Phillip.

“So unfortunately we had to pay a bit more,” he laughed.

Speaking at a Royal Television Society event, he argued that The Crown was not aimed at viewers who were staunch Royalists.

“I’m not interested in the Royals,” he declared. “It’s more about what it is to live in this time.”