Grab a Cup of Tea, and Sit Down — Here Are All the Details About the Downton Abbey Movie

Waiting for the Downton Abbey movie to finally get made was beginning to feel like waiting for Lady Edith to catch a break — it was never going to happen. The British period drama ended its sixth season in the US in 2016, and ever since, the production team behind the show has been hinting that a feature film will eventually make its way to screens. Although we've fallen for the same song and dance before, the Downton Abbey movie was officially given the green light back in June 2017 and is currently filming. Here are the details we have, so far.

The Cast
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The Cast

Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville, and a handful of others are set to reprise their roles as members of the Crawley family, but not every recurring character is going to make their movie debut, including Lily James. The Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again actress confirmed to People that she will not appear in the film. "My character Rose moved off to New York, so it would be far-fetched to bring her back," she explained. "I would have loved to have come back for a scene, but for a movie it can't be like a Christmas special and it needs to be a focused storyline. There was no space for Rose."

The Production Team
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The Production Team

Julian Fellowes, who wrote the TV series, penned the screenplay for the movie (meaning more sassy lines from Lady Violet, which is something we can all get behind). He will also produce alongside Gareth Neame and Liz Trubridge. The Book Thief's Brian Percival, who actually directed the show's pilot in 2010, is on board as the film's director.

The Story
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The Story

Fortunately, the series' iconic set — Highclere Castle — will once again serve as the backdrop for their story. The story itself is still being kept very much under wraps, but last year, Fellowes suggested at a China Exchange event in London that a Downton Abbey prequel with younger versions of the show's main stars could be an option, since "rounding up the actors who have now gone off to the four corners of the earth, in Hollywood, on Broadway, doing plays, doing series, and so on" is a difficult hurdle. "I think it would be possible to do a prequel that was recast and do a love story," Fellowes said. "So you went right back and had the young cast arriving in the show as footmen and Mrs. Patmore being a kitchen maid."

The First Photo

With production underway, star Michelle Dockery — who played Lady Mary Crawley in all six seasons — shared a black-and-white photo of the set on Instagram. There's not much we can make out, other than that Dockery appears to be in a sitting room of some kind with costar Jim Carter, who played gruff butler Charles Carson. Still exciting though, no?

The Release Date
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The Release Date

The film will release on Sept. 20, 2019, in North America, with an international debut set for a week earlier on Sept. 13, 2019.