Anyone keen to see the third Downton Abbey movie will want to circle September 12, 2025 on their calendars.
That’s when Focus Features has slated Downton Abbey 3 for global release. The third installment of the film franchise will come over three years after Downton Abbey: A New Era. Currently, the new film is still being produced in the UK, according to Variety.
So where will Downton Abbey 3 take the Crawley family and its servants? Here’s everything we know so far.
Who’s returning for Downton Abbey 3?
Plenty of familiar faces are returning for the third edition of Downton Abbey next fall.
Simon Curtis, who directed A New Era is confirmed to be directing this movie as well. That movie grossed over $90 million worldwide.
Joining Curtis will be a series of regulars at Highclere Castle, including Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, Robert James-Collier, Joanne Froggatt, Allen Leech, Penelope Wilton, Lesley Nicol, Michael Fox, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Harry Hadden-Paton. They’ll also have Sophie McShera, Douglas Reith and Dominic West, with the latter playing a silent movie star in A New Era.
So, we’ll see our share of characters we’ve grown to love and/or hate, but this movie will also feature some new star power on the silver screen.
Who are the newcomers joining the cast?
There may be some newcomers whose characters we aren’t familiar with, but moviegoers will know the actors well.
Paul Giamatti has an extensive film and TV resume. He won a 2008 Emmy for the miniseries John Adams, in which he portrayed the second US president. Giamatti has also won three Golden Globes and has been nominated for an Oscar twice, including the most recent Academy Awards for his part in The Holdovers.
Joining Giamatti will be Joely Richardson, a British actress who received plenty of critical acclaim for the show Nip/Tuck and knows a thing or two about historical pieces, having worked on The Tudors.
Alessandro Nivola has extensive film, TV and theatre credits, earning a Tony Award nomination for The Elephant Man in 2015. His film career began in the late 90s where he had a small role in the John Travolta/Nicolas Cage movie Face/Off. He also worked opposite Robert De Niro in the family Biopic The Wizard of Lies.
Two years ago, Simon Russell Beale won a Tony for Best Actor in the play “The Lehman Trilogy”, and he has a pair of British Television Academy Awards for A Dance to the Music of Time and The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Parts I & II. He should add an interesting element to this movie.
Arty Froushan rounds out the cast of newcomers. He is probably best known for Carnival Row, where he plays Jonah Breakspear.
Where we left off?
If we go back a few years, we left off the Downton Abbey film series with a passing of the torch.
This is a spoiler alert for those who’ve yet to see A New Era.
At the end of this movie, we are in the late 1920s, and we learn that Violet Crawley, played by Maggie Smith, has passed away. It’s now on Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) to keep things ticking.
What does Downton Abbey 3 have in store?
Little else is known about Downton Abbey 3 besides the cast and production team.
We do know that Lady Mary is likely running things, so it seems possible that the third instalment will continue in chronological order from the previous one and examine how things are going with a new person at the top. We saw Lady Mary’s marriage come under strain following her husband Henry’s absence, while Daisy played cupid to Mrs Patmore and her ex-father-in-law, Mr Mason. Edith, meanwhile, is still working for a London-based society magazine.
There are plenty of unresolved issues that will make this movie most intriguing.
This third movie will be released over 10 years after the hit TV series debuted its final season in April 2015.