Downton Abbey Movie Teaser Trailer: The House Takes Center Stage

Downton Abbey releases the first look at the highly anticipated feature film based on the hit television series when the debut of the teaser trailer. The Downton Abbey movie will be released in September 2019.

The series, which originally aired from 2010 to 2016, featured the stories of the Crawley family, the aristocrats of the titular manor house and the servants who attended to them. Written solely by creator Julian Fellowes, who struck gold with a similar story when he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for 2001’s Gosford Park, Downton Abbey earned acclaim from audiences and critics alike, winning 15 Emmys and three Golden Globes during its run. With 69 nominations, it is currently the most nominated series in Emmy history.

When the series ended, the fate of Downton Abbey looked bleak as changing culture saw nobility losing their power in a post WWI Britain, but the teaser trailer shows the estate restored to its full glory. From shots of drop cloths being pulled from the furniture and a bell ringing in the kitchen to alert the servants, it appears that Downton is still a functioning, inhabited estate.

Besides lovingly framed shots of the home at the center of the story, the trailer also shows some kind of processional complete with a crowd waving flags and an unknown character riding towards Downton Abbey on a motorbike. Notably missing from the minute-long teaser are any of the familiar faces from the large, ensemble cast ­- though it has been confirmed that the entire Downton Abbey cast will be returning. And rather than list the names of the cast, the trailer ends instead with a list of the beloved characters that will be returning.

The announcement of a feature film based on the series came over a year after the sixth and final season, but assembling the large cast took time so production was delayed until August of this year. Though a definite success, the series’ quality was inconsistent in later seasons and the loss of Dan Stevens as Matthew Crawley, the love interest of Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and the lynchpin to the overall plot (involving nobility succession laws going through male heirs only) hurt the series more than Fellowes would like to admit. However, there is no question that the grandeur of the series will translate well to the big screen and the show’s most ardent fans will turnout regardless of how compelling the plot turns out to be.