Ever since AMC’s Mad Men ended its seven-year run back in 2015, speculations on what would be next for series creator Matthew Weiner has been a topic of heated interest.
Earlier this year, Amazon fueled the fire when it greenlit what is set to become the next project from Weiner: The Romanoffs, an eight-episode series that was reportedly given a budget of $70 million, though Weiner gave a more modest figure of $50 million in a recent interview.
The Romanoffs is slated be a contemporary anthology series about a group of people from across the world that believe themselves to be descendants of the titular royal family, who ruled Russia for over 300 years before being overthrown by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Many members of the royal family were executed at that time, while others went into exile around the world.
Some of the high-profile names considered to be descendants of The Romanoffs include the UK’s Prince Philip and Prince Michael of Kent, and Greece’s King Constantine II.
Four episodes of the show are slated to be shot in the US, while the other four will be filmed on location in cities around the world. One of those four cities, according to the Czech Film Commission, will be Prague.
Projected dates for the Prague shoot were given as September 2017, though that could be pushed back.
So far, the high-profile cast for The Romanoffs includes Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Isabelle Huppert (Elle), Jack Huston (Ben-Hur), Marthe Keller, Amanda Peet, and Mad Men regulars John Slattery and Christina Hendricks.
Mad Men stars Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss are also rumored to be involved with the project.
Because the series is as an anthology that follows different characters in different locations around the globe, it’s unknown who will take part in the Prague-shot episode. There will be no recurring characters between the eight episodes.
While Weiner is best-known for AMC’s Mad Men, he also served as writer and producer for HBO’s The Sopranos.
A release date has yet to be set, but the series is projected to hit Amazon streaming services in early 2018.
Lead image: Nicholas II of Russia with the family (left to right): Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana in Livadiya (1913) via Wikimedia.
