‘Downton Abbey’ Movie Reportedly in Development for 2018
It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly Downton Abbey transitioned from water-cooler drama to gilded afterthought, but we didn’t have to wait long to revisit the Crawley family. NBCUniversal bosses claim Downton Abbey is gearing up for a movie, which might shoot as early as 2018.
Even as the period drama ended its run in only March of 2016, NBCUniversal International Studios president Michael Edelstein told the Associated Press at Singapore’s Downton Abbey: The Exhibition (h/t TVLine) that “There’s a movie in the works. It’s been in the works for some time. We are working on getting the script right, and then we’ve got to figure out how to get the [cast] together. … But we’re hopeful to make a movie sometime next year.”
Granted, reassembling that cast is a tall order, as the final season included Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Joanne Froggatt, Matthew Goode, Phyllis Logan, Rob James-Collier, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Lesley Nicol, Penelope Wilton and more. That’s only the regulars among the final season, to say nothing of departed fan-favorites like the busy Dan Stevens.
We’ll see if Edelstein’s plans for a 2018 shoot come to fruition, but what new ground might a Downton Abbey movie tread?