Mad Men creator to launch show about the Romanovs

Matthew Weiner, best known as the creator of the AMC TV series Mad Men and a writer for The Sopranos, has announced on Variety that he is working on a show called The Romanoffs.

The series will run on Amazon and consist of eight hour-long episodes, and focus on people who believe they are the descendants of the Russian royal family.

Weiner also says that the show is fuelled by the interest in people and their connection with their ancestors rather than strictly Russian history. “We’re at a place in our history where people are looking for a close connection to their roots, and for some kind of revelation about who they are. There’s great debate about who is a Romanoff and what happened to the Romanoffs. The story for me is that we’re all questioning who we are and who we say we are,” he told Variety. Weiner added that he has been interested in Romanovs for a while now — his curiosity has been fuelled by his love of Russian literature, and several years of learning of the language in high school.

Cinematic interest in the royal family has been growing strong in the last year, with the centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Russian film Matilda that has sparked debates for its discussion of an affair that Nicholas II had with ballet dancer Mathilde Kschessinska.

On the team working on The Romanoffs will be writers and producers who worked with Weiner on Mad Men, a show that won 16 Emmys and five Golden Globes. The series is said to premiere on Amazon next spring.