How Focus Features’ ‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ Ushers In Specialty Label’s First Franchise – CinemaCon

EXCLUSIVE: When Downton Abbey first burst on the scene in 2010, the Julian Fellowes-created series quickly drew audiences and made headlines for its unique spin on the traditional British period drama. This was not your grandmother’s upstairs/downstairs look at the upper crust, rather its take on the aristocracy gave contemporary audiences characters and storylines they could relate to with strong women, quotable dialogue and tons of heart.

Now, 12 years later comes Focus Features’ Downton Abbey: A New Era, the feature sequel to the 2019 hit film that notched $238 million in worldwide box office and became the studio’s highest-grossing title ever domestically. But A New Era isn’t just a sequel, it also establishes Focus’ first bona fide franchise — a rare beast in the specialty arena. It’s also a sign of the way the company, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is thinking about its future.

Directed by Simon Curtis and featuring the original cast, A New Era starts offshore rollout this week, including in the UK on Friday, and lands in North America on May 20, taking audiences on a trip to the South of France while also saving plenty of intrigue for the folks on the Grantham estate.

Deadline recently spoke with Focus chairman Peter Kujawski, vice chairman Jason Cassidy and Downton producer Gareth Neame, who is executive chairman of NBCUniversal International-owned Carnival Films and has been there since the series’ inception. The trio discussed the latest film, attracting new audiences and where things go from here. (The conversation below has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

DEADLINE: Walk me through how A New Era establishes Focus’ first franchise, rather than being considered simply a sequel.

PETER KUJAWSKI: We’ve found that the power of the relationship that the audience has to this world and these characters and this glimpse into the shifting landscapes of the eras that Downton is talking about, has built the same kind of thing — but in different ways and to a different crowd — to engage in a manner that is similar to the biggest and broadest franchises that exist out there as well.

You had the show, you’ve now got a couple movies, you have the touring exhibition that has been a giant global hit anywhere it’s gone, and podcasts and digital series. There’s going to be a bunch of original Downton content that is tied to the release of this movie, stories and the world in and of itself for people to spend time with.

(Original video series) Inside The Downton Kitchen and the Fireside Chat with Julian Fellowes and things like that truly in this space kind of crib on what you see more happening on the large studio scale with classic IP superheroes and action movies.

I think we’ve been lucky beneficiaries of what had been built before and the chance to make the (first) movie and then joining the Downton family and really leaning into the idea that a franchise is more than just sequels. It’s broader.

GARETH NEAME: I think we’re now just breaking into the area of, “Okay this was a hit TV show, it’s been a hit movie, hopefully it’s a successful sequel,” and I think that we’re in that space where rightly, Focus, Universal and we are looking at this as a prime piece of IP within the wider group and what can you do, what are these companies supposed to do actually when they have got these big pieces of the crown jewels.

It does feel to me like five years ago I would have been happy with six successful seasons and one movie to demonstrate that it works on the big screen. Of course the more things go on you think, “No, I don’t want it to end yet, there is more to do.”

DEADLINE: Are you going to do a third film?

KUJAWSKI: All our focus right now is making this film connect with audiences. But of course it would also be foolish of us not to be contemplating the idea of what Downton can continue to be to audiences and what a future would look like. Right now it’s really about this movie and a lot of things that we’re talking about that are on the edge of this movie that are Downton related.

NEAME: I would like to do another movie, and I’m very optimistic about this film, particularly for the fans. It’s a very special treat. It’s more focused on the core characters than the first film. It’s a family story and inevitably its construction is very easy to relate to if you’re a fan.

KUJAWSKI: It’s your favorite family that not only has an adventure at home, but also the discovery of a secret that takes them to the South of France. It feels like an event and the filmmakers have gone above and beyond this time.

DEADLINE: Is there room to attract new and younger audiences who perhaps weren’t a part of that zeitgeist moment when the series first aired?

JASON CASSIDY: When we started on this journey, it was certainly an older audience. As we’ve gone through the success of the movie — it did $100M domestic, you don’t do that by just playing to older audiences — we were frankly surprised and thrilled that there were 25-40-year-olds making up a very significant part of the audience.

So we think about those audiences that are on the younger side that’s really grown and the digital content has helped build up the franchise. It’s given a real opportunity to grow it, because you don’t get the response in box office and then in the after markets from just the older audience. The age has definitely come down even as we’ve been on it. I would think in the world of people watching The Gilded Age and Bridgerton, content and shows and movies that are in this space, broadly speaking, are drawing in new eyeballs and younger eyeballs. You’re able to say, “Oh, you like Bridgerton? Boom, you’re gonna like this.”

KUJAWSKI: This was in a way the original and I think real credit is due to the particular genius of Julian and Gareth and how, from the get-go, before a frame of the series was shot, they saw what this genre could be.

It hit very quickly and I think it’s because they tapped into this notion that underneath the world they were talking about in terms of the classic British heritage was actually a ton of modern stuff. They knew that, and the entire series and the movies as well has always been propelled by fundamental things everyone feels all the time everywhere. Like the anxiety of just the new, the era is always changing on you and how do you respond to that and what is history and tradition, what it means to move forward. You look at the journey of Thomas Barrow over the course of the franchise which has never allowed itself to be defined by typical genre trappings. These characters are people you feel and related to in a completely contemporary and present-day sense while existing in this world of aspirational wealth and beauty and travel and all the things that the series promises — and that’s not a generational thing.

DEADLINE: You make these movies for a price, but there is a great deal of location shooting and a huge cast; how has that evolved?

KUJAWSKI: Certainly with the first film we wanted to make sure that we were building the production in a way that it could have the promise to really reignite the fervor that existed for the series, but draw it as a theatrical imperative. So, we were also kind of tactical and cautious about that. I think because of the overwhelming and immediate success from the outset through the release of the movie, certainly on this movie there was no hesitation for us to kind of amp that up.

DEADLINE: So you spent more money?

KUJAWSKI: For sure, and that was to deliver what the promise of this movie had been from the very first conversations with Gareth and Julian — this idea of going to the South of France and all that. We wanted to make sure that it was truly a grand adventure in a grand and broad and beautiful way.

DEADLINE: Gareth, I recall before you made the first movie one of your concerns was the sort of herding of cats of such a big cast…

NEAME: It was a concern for the first one because in the same way as it was a stony path to migrate to the big screen, I would think that it would be quite reasonable that the actors had the same reservations. At every stage, Downton exceeded expectations, so was this going to be the one that failed? They were cautious, and then that film worked, so coming into the second film was much much easier because there were no qualms about going again.

DEADLINE: Generally speaking of Focus, you guys opened 23 films exclusively in cinemas since 2020 and the last two years have been the company’s busiest in terms of production (led by Kiska Higgs, President of Production & Acquisitions) while also maintaining the top position among specialty labels four out of the past five years. What does the future look like? Will you aim to make more franchises?

KUJAWSKI: We’re at an awfully exciting juncture as a company ourselves. We are still a theatrical company that has actually massively increased our release line during the pandemic rather than going the other way — and we have all of the support in the world to continue to do that and lean in to that. That’s indicative of the way we’re starting to think about what the future of our slate and world looks like, of using the entire apparatus to truly make franchises that aren’t just about let’s go back in the library and make a sequel to this movie. It may include some of that, but it will include a broader reach-around.

We made Hanna with Joe Wright back in the day and that became a TV series on Amazon. That kind of stuff can now flow much more naturally and organically in the kind of holistic plan we can do with the slate, our movies, our filmmakers. It’s about supercharged injection to the storytelling capabilities of the people that we’re incredibly lucky to work with, and I think that everyone’s mindset is shifting to get that it’s not just the individual movie. Each moment that you’re launching a movie you can build a world around it, you can build additional stuff that broadens the story, broadens the world, broadens your relationship with those characters, and then from there maybe another movie comes and you do the same thing in an even broader way. That is certainly an active part of our thinking.