'The Crown' Spoilers, Cast: Paul Bettany to Replace Matt Smith as Prince Philip?

By Janna Dela Cruz, Christian Post Contributor Monday, January 22, 2018

The third season of "The Crown" will feature a new core cast, and Paul Bettany might be part of it.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Marvel actor is in talks to play the role of Prince Philip, who was played by "Doctor Who" alum Matt Smith in the first two seasons.

"The Crown" creator Peter Morgan has always intended to change the ensemble because season 3 will time jump forward and he wanted to better represent the characters as they age on the show.

This is why Claire Foy is being replaced by Olivia Colman for the role of Queen Elizabeth II while Helena Bonham-Carter was tapped to portray the Queen's sister, Princess Margaret, who was played by Vanessa Kirby.

In an interview with Variety, Morgan explained the logic behind the cast rotation in "The Crown" season 3:

You can't ask someone to act middle-aged. Someone has to bring their own fatigue to it. The feelings we all have as 50-year-olds are different than the feelings we all have as 30-year-olds. That informs everything we do.

While Smith will not be part of "The Crown" moving forward, he did hint in a previous interview with Indie Wire that Morgan has a plan of grand scale for the show in the future, possibly even bringing Princess Diana into the picture:

[Morgan] would go that far. It will go that far, I really believe it. I think it's too important not to. I think we've got it, now we've started. Who knows? I am not Peter Morgan. I don't write 10 episodes of "The Crown" every year so I'm sure that's not without its difficulties. I just think there's so much to explore, you know?
What's so clever about it is you get to cover so much. You've still got Thatcher to come. You've still got Clinton, and before then there's Nixon ... there's some really interesting characters coming our way. And then politically ... I mean eventually, they're going to have to get to Donald Trump. How are they going to do that?

"The Crown" season 3 has no release date yet.