The delays over the filming of the fifth series of the Emmy award-winning show Mad Men have been long and well-documented. The series creator Matthew Weiner and the production company Lionsgate have been embroiled in contract negotiations for several months and fans have resigned themselves to waiting for the answers to those all-important questions raised at the end of season four.
Speaking to the BBC, Jon Hamm, who plays the smooth-talking advertising executive Don Draper in the hit show, didn't seem overly upset about these schedule setbacks, diplomatically suggesting that no one was to blame and observing that "when billionaires fight it tends to take a lot longer than when normal people do."
Hamm said that series five would probably start filming this summer, in July or August. He is set to direct the first episode himself - but he admitted that the scripts may not exist yet. "The way Matthew [Weiner] writes the show is very organically. He starts when he starts and eventually there are scripts, but I certainly haven't seen them."
Hamm also went on to say that he felt it was important that the show came to a natural end, rather than continuing past its peak - and, in news that will distress Mad Men fanatics, he predicted that the series will wind up for good after its seventh season.
