‘The Last Kingdom’ Producers Reflect on ‘An End of an Era’ as Netflix Series Wraps

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias On a recent Saturday night in Hungary, just days before the official start of spring, principal photography wrapped on “Seven Kings Must Die,” the feature-length spinoff of the Netflix historical drama “The Last Kingdom,” which ranked among the most popular shows on the streaming service when its fifth and final season was released in March.Nigel Marchant, managing director at Carnival Films, the NBCUniversal-owned production house behind “The Last Kingdom” as well as global hit “Downton Abbey,” described an “emotional” scene as cast and crew parted ways for the last time. “It was the first time we didn’t have another show that we were putting into production in Hungary,” says Marchant, who has been part of the series since production on season one began in 2014. “It really is an end of an era.” The award-winning historical drama, which tells the story of British-born and Danish-raised warrior Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon) in ninth-century Europe, began its life as a BBC America series before Netflix came on board as a co-producer for the show’s second season.Though not initially an “overnight hit,” according to Carnival’s executive chairman, Gareth Neame, the series became a “slow burn” phenomenon through word of mouth and a wildly dedicated fan base.

Season five was viewed for 63.5 million hours in its first five days after launching on Netflix in March, ranking second that week among English-language shows on the streamer.Such success might have been hard to predict a decade ago, when Carnival began developing the series.To both recreate medieval Wales and mount a production of its size, the producers needed to find “a green belt of unspoiled countryside quite near to a hub of crew,” says Marchant..