‘Downton Abbey 2’ Movie Confirmed by Hugh Bonneville

Actor Hugh Bonneville has revealed that a follow up to 2019’s successful Downton Abbey film is on its way shortly.

The 57-year-old played Lord Grantham’s role in the celebrated ITV period drama for six seasons, from 2010 to 2015. The successful feature film appeared in 2019. Author Julian Fellowes developed the series that quickly grew into something far more significant than a British aristocracy’s standard account in post-Edwardian era England.

Haggling with the Crawley family’s extensive goings, Downton Abbey gave viewers a look into the densely layered hierarchy of the eponymous estate’s household. The series portrays numerous real-life historical events and various entertaining subplots that kept viewers guessing what’s next.

Apart from its vast collection of awards, it was also named as having the highest critical review ratings for a TV show by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2011. All of this was ample to qualify for the jump from the small screen to the big screen, and the enormous success of the first film left sufficient room for more to come.

Emphasizing the need for everyone to be vaccinated in the coming weeks and months, Bonneville, said,

“If everybody who is offered a vaccine takes a vaccine, we can make a movie. We will make a movie. It’s the usual thing, the planets are circling, they’re beginning to get into alignment, but there’s this thing called coronavirus knocking around. Until that is under control in a sensible way, we’re not going to be able to get all those ducks in a row. There certainly is the intention to do it, we’d love to do it, we’re desperate to do it.”

Bonneville

Like the series, the film observed the lives of the wealthy Crawley family and their maids, butlers, and cooks, and the sequel will undoubtedly feature several of the same themes. In the first film, however, the family is thrown into chaos by King George V and Queen Mary’s inevitable arrival.

But there remains one element that many will no doubt be challenging ahead of the second film: the destiny of Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Dame Maggie Smith).

Towards the end of the first film, Violet’s death was attributed to an emotional scene between herself and granddaughter Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) after disclosing that she’s suffering from an illness likely to take her life.

Nonetheless, in a recent interview, Julian Fellowes asserted that Violet is, in fact, still alive—which means she could have a prominent role in the sequel.

“We should remember that at the end of the film, Maggie was by no means dead,”

Julian Fellowes

“You imagine Violet is on her way out, but that decision hasn’t been reached.”

Julian Fellowes

The most vital selling point of the first Downton Abbey movie was that it was surprisingly able to draw in viewers beyond its fanbase. It’s not unusual for a popular TV series to make new fans when modified to the big screen. Downton Abbey has always sustained such a vast number of characters, plots, and subplots that it isn’t exactly the most comfortable world to walk into uninformed. The film’s capacity to maintain Downton Abbey‘s rich background while still delivering enough plot for new audiences can hopefully continue into the sequel.

Downton Abbey may have been widely lauded, and the 2019 movie did better than some would have expected, but not all fans of the series are enthusiastic about seeing more. In a way, the series’ climax left things just as they needed to be, and Downton Abbey 2 is arguably needless. But for the diehard as well as the new fans, especially in a post-pandemic world, there’s nothing better than more time spent in the company of the Crawleys.

About Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. The series first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2010, and in the United States on PBS, which supported production of the series as part of its Masterpiece Classic anthology, on 9 January 2011.

The series, set in the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey between 1912 and 1926, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants in the post-Edwardian era.