‘I live at the real Downton Abbey with my own butlers and a banqueting team’

“I have very little to say except that I think it very charming and kind of you all to give us your Sunday night,” said a disarming Julian Fellowes at the NYC premiere of Downton Abbey: A New Era last Sunday. Distributor Focus Features – and the broader industry — hopes audiences will give the film many more Sunday nights, and other days and dayparts, jumpstarting the return to theaters of older demos.

“Downton Abbey: A New Era,” you may need or want a brief refresher on what happened in the first film.Released in 2019, the aptly named “Downton Abbey” is a feature film continuation of the wildly popular TV series that ran for six series and wrapped up in 2015. Show creator Julian Fellowes returned to write the “Downton Abbey” film, and frequent director of the show’s TV episodes Michael Engler directed the movie.Luckily, a short four-minute video recap of the events of the first “Downton Abbey” movie has been released online, with actor Kevin Doyle (who plays Mr.

“Downton Abbey: A New Era,” the follow-up to the 2019 feature film and the latest in the story of the aristocratic Crawley family established in the hit series, earned $1.05 million in its Thursday box office previews from 3,300 screens. “A New Era” opens on 3,815 screens this weekend, which is the widest opening for a Focus Features film in the specialty distributor’s history.

Highly anticipated Downton Abbey: A New Era made $1.050 million in Thursday previews that began at 7 p.m. at more than 3,800 theaters. It is Focus Features’ widest ever U.S. release and one that comes with a weight of responsibility as the film to finally catapult older demos back into theaters. Focus Features distribution chief Lisa Bunnell recently promised cinema owners it would. “We have our own superheroes,” she said at CinemaCon.

the first film, pulls from real-life events, with the historical drama drawing inspiration from a chapter in Alfred Hitchcock’s professional life as a director. According to director Simon Curtis, the sequel’s movie-within-a-movie subplot is a direct reference to the prolific filmmaker’s early days of making silent movies, most notably 1929’s . [: Some spoilers for ]At the time, Hitchcock was working on his latest silent film, an adaptation of Charles Bennett’s 1928 play about a woman who is blackmailed by a man who tried to assault her.

 reunites the beloved sprawling ensemble cast that make up the extended Crawley family and their many household staff members, there is one performer notably absent from the new film. Matthew Goode, who joined the franchise as Henry Talbot in season 5 and later wed Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), sadly is nowhere to be seen onscreen despite previously returning for the franchise’s first film.Goode's absence, however, doesn’t come as a total surprise given that he has not appeared in any of the trailers or images leading up to ’s theatrical debut.

Downton Abbey: A New Era,” that doesn’t mean Doyle thinks it’s possible for many in the UK, even now.“I mean, people like to think in Britain that it’s, you know, society’s changed a lot,” the Lincolnshire-born actor said. “But I’m a little bit more skeptical.

exciting and neeeeew than that old show.There are two concurrent plots here, both of which play like rudimentary fan fiction. The Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith), who’s in poor health, is shocked when she learns she’s inherited a villa in the south of France from a summer fling decades earlier.

Elizabeth McGovern confesses she thought showbiz was a breeze.The actress, 60, made her feature film debut in the 1980 hit film “Ordinary People” starring Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, directed by Robert Redford.“I didn’t have anything to compare it to, so my feeling was like, ‘God, show business is easy, isn’t it?” she chuckled in a recent interview with The Post. “Little did I know! Then I had to sort of stick with it for however many years, which we won’t say.

Andrew Wallenstein President and Chief Media AnalystWhen “Downton Abbey: The New Era” arrives in U.S. theaters this week, it will represent just the latest iteration of a franchise more than a decade in operation.Julian Fellowes, the Emmy-winning writer of the period-drama megahit, and Gareth Neame, executive chairman of Carnival Films, discuss their collaboration on six TV seasons and two films on the latest episode of the Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” including their hopes that there is still more to come for their beloved period drama.“We can go on with these people as long as the audience wants to go on seeing them and as long as they enjoy them,” said Neame of the “Downton” characters.

When thinking of modern television and its lasting legacy, three shows come to mind as standing tall in either acclaim or significance. First, “Breaking Bad,” which lives on currently through “Better Call Saul” on AMC and is still considered potentially the best show of all time.

is back with an anticipated sequel. not only reunites the beloved ensemble cast, but introduces new characters and new locations that helps expand the world of the franchise as it enters into the modern era. Picking up nine months after the first film in 1928, kicks things off with Tom Branson (Allen Leech) getting married to Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), helping to secure the Crawleys’ fortune and fate at Downton.

Allen Leech and his wife Jessica Blair Herman are due to welcome their second daughter this year.The Downton Abbey star, who plays the role of the chauffeur-turned-family member Tom Branson in the hit franchise, opened up on the couple's unborn child while at the New York premiere for the A New Era film on Sunday 15 May. Although the actor didn't specifically say they would be having a baby girl, he teased: "If you can see what myself and my wife are wearing, you have a clue." Allen, 40, was dressed in a pale pink-beige jacket with a nude shirt underneath alongside a striped tie, which he teamed with some brown trousers and a darker shade of smart shoes.

Antonio Ferme editorThe Crawley’s are back — but with a twist.“Downton Abbey,” the hit British TV series that ran for six seasons on PBS, is making its way onto the big screen for a second time. Rather than spawning a seventh season, writer and creator Julian Fellowes explained why he decided to transform the series into a film franchise.“I think the cast particularly had enough of working from February to November, whereas a film is eight weeks out of their lives every two and a half years,” Fellowes told Variety on Sunday at the New York premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House.He continued, “It’s a different commitment.

Michelle Dockery and Laura Carmichael stick together on the red carpet at the premiere of Downton Abbey: A New Era held at the Metropolitan Opera House on Sunday (May 15) in New York City.

When the teaser trailer for “Downton Abbey: A New Era” premiered last year, it didn’t take the standard route of listing the cast for the film. Instead, the promo elegantly trumpeted the presence of Lord Grantham, Lady Grantham, et al.

Downton Abbey: A New Era released in cinemas last week to praise from fans and critics, with the ending leaving some viewers particularly devastated. The film sees Dame Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern reprise their roles, as the Crawleys attempt to solve the mystery of why the Dowager Countess (Smith) has suddenly inherited a French villa.

Downton Abbey's Lesley Nicol has been left devastated after the passing of her beloved husband David Keith Heald. The 68 year old's agent, Paul Pearson, confirmed the news of his death to The Sun as he shared: “I would like to confirm the passing of Lesley’s beloved husband David Heald, known to all his wonderful friends as Da’arboth. “Da’arboth was an amazing, unique and inspirational man who was always at Lesley’s side ‘her warrior’.

A great change! Fans have been immersed in the historical drama of HBO Max’s The Gilded Age since its season 1 debut.