Downton Abbey movie finally going ahead? Phyllis Logan has good news for fans
The heavily-anticipated Downton Abbey movie could finally be heading into production, if a new interview from star Phyllis Logan is anything to go by.
Logan, who played housekeeper Mrs Hughes in the much-loved ITV period drama, recently told the Mail on Sunday that producers have been in touch with the show's cast, asking them to "clear their diaries" and working with them to coordinate a shooting time.
"Everyone’s been asked what’s going on between this date and that date,’ she told the newspaper. "So we just hope that all the elements – because there are so many – come together. To have a last hurrah with all the characters, going back to the castle and seeing all the old muckers will be fantastic. I’m certainly up for it."
Logan also confirmed that a new script for the project is in the works. "There’s a potential script coming our way, slightly rewritten," she said.
The popular "upstairs downstairs" drama, which explored class conflict and the life of the British aristocracy between 1912 and 1926, came to an end in 2015 after six seasons.
But fans have long hoped that a much-talked-about film adaptation would come to fruition, providing them with another delve into the lives of characters such as Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery) and Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith).
Plans to begin filming in 2017 reportedly fell through, but Logan's words suggest that 2018 could definitely be the year.
According to the Mail on Sunday, dates in the summer have already been earmarked for some interiors filming, with Highclere Castle in Berkshire scheduled for closure, reportedly for this purpose, in the first week of June.
And last year Michael Edelstein, president at NBC Universal International Studios, also suggested that 2018 filming was on the cards.
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"There's a movie in the works. It's been in the works for some time," he said in June. "We are working on getting the script right and then we've got to figure out how to get the (cast) together. Because as you know, people go on and do other things. But we're hopeful to make a movie sometime next year,
Previously, Downton Abbey's creator Julian Fellowes hinted that a prequel with a new cast could be a possibility. But Logan's words suggest this almost certainly isn't the plan.
Instead, as the series bowed out with episodes set in 1926, it is expected that the new film will move the story forwards, and see its characters contend with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and with the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.
