Don’t worry, Lady Mary will return to the big screen...one day. A sequel to the Downton Abbey movie is happening, but not as soon as fans might hope. Creator Julian Fellowes said he would start working on the second feature film soon, according to Deadline, but as for when it could hit theatres, that’s another story.
Fellowes said that he will start working on the follow-up to the 2019 film after he finishes writing HBO’s The Gilded Age, a series that is focused on New York City in the 1880s. “Give us a break, gov,” he said when asked about Downton after speaking at the Winter TCA press tour to promote the Epix drama Belgravia. “Not until I’ve finished the scripts for The Gilded Age.” That 10-part series, starring Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon, Christine Baranski, and Amanda Peet, is set to start filming later this year.
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Being that Fellowes seems a little busy with his new series, which has been in the works since 2018, he didn’t offer much detail about what a Downton Abbey movie sequel would look like. However, his producing partner Gareth Neame also sounded confident that another movie will happen in good time. “We all enjoyed it,” Neame told Variety last month. “The actors enjoyed it, so hopefully we’ll find a way to come back for more.”
Neame also noted that The Gilded Age had delayed any work on the sequel, but he thinks Fellowes can still get it all done in a timely manner. In fact, he said in the Variety interview that he told Fellowes, “I like to think you have two shifts going on, a day shift and night shift, and the TV work can happen during the day and the writing on the Downton script at night.”
The studio that released the movie, Focus Features, probably hopes Fellowes will be pulling the night shift, too. Downton Abbey: The Movie is Focus Features’ highest grossing film domestically, breaking the record previously held by Brokeback Mountain.