Since 2016, we've been living in a desolate world devoid of new Downton Abbey episodes.
While Downton Abbey isn't being revived as a TV series, we are being blessed with a film.
Be warned that there are spoilers ahead, so if you're up to date with the show, here's
what you can look forward to in the film.
There was speculation that departed cast member Dan Stevens, who played Lady Mary's dearly
departed husband Matthew Crawley, might appear as a ghost or in a flashback.
Stevens himself fanned the flames by posting a photo on Instagram with his former castmates,
with a caption reading "Should Matthew have a mustache for the #DowntonAbbeyMovie?"
He then fanned the flames in November, 2018 by appearing with a moustache on The Late
Late Show with James Corden.
"Can you confirm if you are going to be in the Downton Abbey movie?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny the reports."
Alas, Stevens was just messing with everyone, and in February 2019, he officially confirmed
that he will not be appearing in the film.
Sorry, Matthew fans!
Fan favorite Maggie Smith, who played the Dowager Countess, actually wasn't that upset
when Downton Abbey ended.
She told Yours,
"It's not riotously funny to be in corsets and a wig from 7 o'clock in the morning until
7 o'clock at night.
We have had a great time making the show […] but to tell you the truth, the corsets are agony!
God knows how they lived in the days when they had to wear them all the time."
And in a 2017 interview at the British Film Institute, she said she didn't think a movie
revival would be a good idea.
"I just think it's squeezing it dry, do you know what I mean?
I don't know what it could possibly be.
It's too meandering."
In fact, she suggested that the best way to do a movie might be if it were centered on
the Dowager's death!
"So are you in a way sort of glad Downton's over?"
"Oh yeah."
"By the time we finished, she must have been a hundred and ten!"
Don't worry, though.
Smith seems to have had a change of heart, as she is front and center in the film's trailers.
Thank goodness!
One fan favorite we won't be seeing in the Downton Abbey film, though, is actress Lily
James, who was introduced as the Dowager Countess' great-niece, Lady Rose, in the third season's
Christmas special.
By the end of the show, Rose had moved to America.
That's not why she's missing from the film, though.
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes told Entertainment Weekly that James was just too
busy now that she's become a household name for films like Cinderella and Yesterday.
"Lily is now a big star, and it would've been incredibly difficult for her to find time
in her schedule to come and play essentially a supporting role in Downton when her career
was in a different place when she was with us."
Executive producer Gareth Neame joked that James couldn't make time because...
"...she's in every other film [in] the world at the moment."
The Downton Abbey movie is going to take us into the future, but not too far down the
timeline.
The film is set in the autumn of 1927, picking up just a year and a half after the series
finale.
"No maid.
No valet.
No nanny, even!"
"It's 1927.
We're modern folk."
While it might have been interesting to see what Lord and Lady Grantham's grandkids look
like when they're all grown up, show creator Julian Fellowes told The Wrap that he has
a solid reason for not wanting to set things too far in the future.
"I feel the '30s have been very much explored dramatically, and I didn't really want to
get into the whole business of the Nazis, which I think has been explored exhaustively."
Fellowes added,
"The difficulty of dramatizing the Nazis, to me, is that I like ambivalent dramas, where
you don't know whose side you're on, or maybe you change sides.
[…] But the Nazis don't give you that.
Nobody's slightly on the side of the Nazis.
It's so absolute — there's just bad guys and good guys."
While the film is starting up not long after we last saw the inhabitants of Downton Abbey,
the film could have just as easily been in a completely different era.
One of the ideas Julian Fellowes had for a Downton Abbey film was actually not a sequel,
but a prequel.
The advantage to this, of course, is that it would have been easier to cast as they
wouldn't have had to try to bring together all the original cast members of the show.
At a BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture in 2012 Fellowes said,
"I do actually have an idea of doing a prequel of the courtship of Robert and Cora, when
all those American heiresses were arriving in London.
They had a slightly troubled courtship because she was in love with him before they married,
and as we know, he married her entirely for her money."
Fellowes added,
"I sort of feel there's something quite nice in there because he's a decent [man], and
so he feels rather guilty about this, which has affected their marriage beyond that."
If you think obsession over the royals began with William and Kate, you're in for a big
surprise, because the Downton Abbey film centers on the excitement and drama surrounding a
royal visit to everyone's favorite English estate.
"The king and queen are coming to Downtown."
"What?"
It's not clear which members of the royal family will be swinging by the estate.
We'll almost certainly see King George V.
We might also catch a glimpse of the currently reigning British monarch, Queen Elizabeth
II, who was born in 1926, the year before the movie takes place — but only if there
are cousins tagging along for the royal visit.
In 1927, Elizabeth was only distantly in line for the throne as her father, George VI, didn't
inherit the crown after the abdication of his older brother, Edward VIII, in 1936.
Lady Mary and Lady Edith haven't always had the smoothest relationship, which is putting
it mildly.
But according to Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary, things have changed since the series
ended.
"They're very supportive of one another and they're good friends.
It's nice to see Mary in that way as opposed to being in constant turmoil about her love
life."
Dockery told Entertainment Weekly that Mary is finally on top of her game.
"She's embraced her responsibility much more now as she's matured.
As much as Mary is very independent, her loyalty always remains with Downton.
[…] There's a sense of Mary holding it all together."
And as for Lady Edith, director Michael Engler told Entertainment Weekly that she is settling
into her new life as the happily married Marchioness of Hexham.
"[Edith and her husband] are adapting to being a married couple and to her being a lady of
one of these great houses.
It brings with it much more responsibility and protocol than she was raised with at Downton.
[…] On one level, they're these modern people in their training and expectations, but then,
they are in the roles of these very elevated, cultural positions."
The Downton Abbey series finale did a pretty good job of wrapping up everyone's storylines.
But there were two characters who didn't quite get the romantic endings that fans wanted:
Thomas Barrow and Tom Branson.
Barrow saw a lot of character growth over the course of the show, spending much of the
series struggling with his attraction to men — something that was taboo during the time
period of the show.
Promoted to butler by the end of the series, Barrow had a happy ending, but fans were still
left wondering if he would ever get his own fairy tale romance.
That seems to be addressed in the film, as the trailer teases that he may finally find
romance.
But will Branson finally find new love after the tragic death of his beloved wife, Lady
Sibyl?
He will if star Allan Leech has anything to say about it!
Leech told Vanity Fair,
"Look, [a romance] was one of my hopes that I had at the end of the series… and it didn't
happen!
So one would hope that it would happen in the movie."
Fans are obviously dying for details about the long-awaited film, but the cast and crew
are staying fairly tight lipped.
One thing they've promised, though, is that the film will stay true to the show that we
all love — and it's going to be even more epic.
Director Michael Engler told Entertainment Weekly,
"The storyline has expanded the scale of it.
It takes the things you love about Downton — the romance, the intrigue, the pageantry
— and makes it bigger."
That's not much to go on, but Engler promised that the anticipation will pay off.
"Making the film felt very much like the story of the film in that all these people came
back together, almost 200 people, to make it bigger and better than ever."
The wait for the Downton Abbey film seems like a long one for fans, and the filmmakers
are hoping that this will make the film that much more enticing.
The executive producer, Gareth Neame, has zero regrets about torturing the show's loyal
viewers with such a long gap between the end of the last season and the release of the
film, but promises that their patience and devotion will be well rewarded.
He told Entertainment Weekly,
"If we'd gone straight into production on the movie, it would've been too quick for
everyone involved.
It wouldn't have felt special.
People are really hungry to be reunited with the characters."
Fans might not agree with Neame's definition of "too quick," but if the movie is as good
as the trailer hints it will be, the wait will be worth it.
Fans aren't the only ones who are excited about the Downton Abbey film.
The cast was also excited to get back together on set.
Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Lady Grantham, told Town & Country,
"It was so nice to see everybody again.
I just absolutely loved it.
In so many ways, we all went through quite a life-changing experience together, so it
really bonds you to a group."
McGovern isn't the only one who was thrilled to reunite with the Downton Abbey cast.
After the film was officially announced in 2018, Michelle Dockery told Vanity Fair,
"We're all really happy that it's finally happening, and we can answer the question
of will the Downton movie really happen, because it's just been killing us to keep it a secret.
It's been awhile [that we've known].
So it's nice to finally be saying it.
And everyone's so excited to go back."
And in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dockery said that she had always hoped a film
would come to fruition.
"I always felt that there was unfinished business because it felt that people weren't quite
done with it."
While the film's director, Michael Engler, is no stranger to the world of Downton Abbey,
he wasn't the first choice to direct the film.
It was originally announced that Brian Percival, who has a strong connection to the show, would
be helming the project.
Percival was involved with Downton Abbey since its inception, directing its pilot episode
as well as five other episodes over the first three seasons of the series.
Percival was later replaced with Michael Engler, although no reason for the change was publicly
announced.
Engler's history with Downton Abbey doesn't go quite as far back as Percival's, but his
involvement with the series is more recent.
Engler directed four episodes of the show over seasons five and six, and also directed
The Chaperone, a period film scripted by Fellowes and starring Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern.
So he seems like a solid choice.
Whoever is behind the camera, though, one thing is sure: we can't wait to see what happens
in front of the camera when the film finally arrives in theaters on September 20, 2019.
See you there.
"A royal luncheon, a parade, and a dinner!
I'm going to have to sit down!"
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