Latest in Downton Abbey

Lily James has said that her latest role, as Mrs. de Winter in the Netflix remake of Daphne du Maurier's classic Gothic novel Rebecca, left her with panic attacks as she struggled to extract herself from the character's "difficult headspace". "I found it really hard to let go of the character [de Winter]. She's really…

Academy Award winner and longtime stage actress Maggie Smith has taken on many fulfilling roles over the years, although she wouldn’t include her work in Downton Abbey or the Harry Potter films among them. Smith, who played schoolmistress Minerva McGonagall in the boy-wizard adventures and Dowager Countess Violet…

The Crawley family is set to take a tour through China. Downton Abbey, the film centering on the aristocratic British family, has been scheduled for release in Chinese theaters on December 13. The period drama continues the story of the Crawleys, and depicts a visit to their English country estate by the king and…

Here’s a little, but huge, box office stat: Focus Features’ Downton Abbey has outstripped the $83 million domestic box office gross of three-time Oscar winner Brokeback Mountain to become the label’s highest-grossing title of all time stateside. Brokeback Mountain owned the record for the last 13 years, and on Monday D…

Representing Focus Features at this year's The Contenders London was this year's not-so-surprise Brit hit Downton Abbey, which brought producer Liz Trubridge, actor Michael C Fox — who plays footman Andy Parker — and costume designer Anna Robbins to the stage. Speaking to Deadline's Peter White, the trio confirmed…

UPDATE, writethru: In its sophomore frame, Fox/New Regency's Ad Astra again led the international box office, landing another $18M from 50 material markets. The overseas cume is $53.5M for $89M worldwide. The Brad Pitt-starrer is now out in all markets handled by Disney which is not across China, Taiwan or Hong Kong…

SUNDAY AM FINAL w/chart: After a $9 million Saturday that was up 58% over Friday, DreamWorks Animation/Pearl Studio’s Abominable is looking at a $20.85M opening and $30M worldwide. As we mentioned before, that’s the seventh No. 1 opening for Universal in 2019 —  eight if you count last weekend’s Downton Abbey — and it…

The Downton Abbey movie just set a boxoffice opening record for NBC sibling Focus Features. In its Season 45 premiere, the network’s late-night sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live spoofed the movie’s heavily played trailer. Featuring SNL cast portraying the Crawleys and their servants panicking that they may not…

With Emmy noise and streamer jokes now behind us, Hollywood's dwindling movie fraternity is left to ponder the bemusing lessons of Downton Abbey. First, the numbers: Though Downton is basically structured like an older-skewing streamer movie, its $31 million box office take blew it past a re-cycled Rambo and a Brad…

UPDATE, writethru: Newcomer Ad Astra, from Fox/New Regency and distributed by Disney, launched this weekend with an estimated $26M in 44 markets for a $45.2M worldwide start. The international box office debut is within the range we were hearing before the weekend, and is 49% ahead of last year's First Man and 23%…

4th Update, Sunday AM Final: w/chart You would think that in this day and age, the best place for a feature movie based on a popular TV series would be on a streaming service, right? But no, this weekend’s $31M opening of Focus Features and Carnival Films’ Downton Abbey continues to underscore the power of the big…

We’ve been hearing for quite some time that the advance ticket sales for Focus Features’ big-screen take on the TV series Downton Abbey are just through the roof. On Fandango, presales for the Michael Engler-directed feature continue to best those of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and The Gr…