Paul Giamatti to star in 3rd 'Downton Abbey' movie
Paul Giamatti will reprise his TV role in the third "Downton Abbey" movie. Credit: Invision / AP / Chris Pizzello
"Downton Abbey," the TV gift that keeps on giving to the big screen, will return for a third movie, the franchise's producers announced Monday.
Paul Giamatti — who will reprise a role he played in the TV series back in 2013 — and Joely Richardson will join a cast that remains largely intact from the first two movies, with one notable exception — Maggie Smith, who played fan favorite Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham. The beloved character died at the end of 2022's "Downton Abbey: A New Era."
The production companies behind both TV series and movies, Focus Features and Carnival Films, also said the long-standing production team, Julian Fellowes, Gareth Neame and Liz Trubridge, will be back, with Fellowes once again as writer.
"Downton" wrapped six seasons in 2015, as one of the most popular series in public television history. Four years later, the first movie arrived (set in 1927, as the "Downton" household prepared for a royal visit) and the second in 2022 (set in 1928, about the production of a movie at Downton).
The producers offered no details about a premiere date or name for the third, but did say that along with Giamatti (who played playboy yacht enthusiast and brother of Cora, Harold Levinson, in the third season) and Richardson, other new cast members will include Arty Froushan ("House of the Dragon"), Simon Russell Beale ("Mary & George") and Alessandro Nivola ("The Many Saints of Newark").
Meanwhile, the release did include this cryptic line about some former cast members who will return for the movie: "and many other fan favorites." Could those include — in flashback, of course — perhaps the most favorite of them all? (See above — Violet.)
The major cast members who have been along for the entire ride, beginning back in 2010, include Hugh Bonneville (Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham), Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham), Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary), Laura Carmichael (Edith Pelham), Jim Carter (Mr. Carson), Phyllis Logan (Elsie Carson), Joanne Froggatt (Anna Bates), Allen Leech (Tom Branson) and Brendan Coyle (John Bates).