"Downton Abbey 2" Is Hitting Theaters in December With the Original Cast

It's only April, and our holiday wishes are already coming true: The cast of Downton Abbey is officially reuniting for the sequel to the 2019 movie, set to come out in December.

While the news of a sequel is a welcome delight, it's not exactly a surprise. In 2020, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes said the sequel's script was next on his docket, after he finished writing The Gilded Age, an HBO Max show set in 1880s New York and starring Christine Baranski (yeah, we're excited).

By February 2021, Hugh Bonneville, who plays Robert Crawley on the show, revealed Fellowes's script was ready—but the pandemic was delaying the movie's production.

"If everybody who is offered a vaccine takes a vaccine, we can make a movie," Bonneville said on British radio program The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. "We will make a movie. It's the usual thing, the planets are circling, they're beginning to get into alignment, but there's this thing called coronavirus knocking around. Until that is under control in a sensible way, we're not going to be able to get all those ducks in a row."

The movie, which will be directed by Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn), started production in April. This is what we know about the Downtown Abbey sequel, and the other series (potentially) in the works.

The Downton Abbey sequel will be released in theaters on December 22, 2021.

There's no word yet on whether it will also stream simultaneously, like some of this year's movie releases have, due to the pandemic.

“After a very challenging year with so many of us separated from family and friends, it is a huge comfort to think that better times are ahead and that next Christmas we will be reunited with the much beloved characters of Downton Abbey,” said producer Gareth Neame, per Deadline.

Your favorite characters, including Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess, are coming back.

The long running show's entire cast reunited for the 2019 movie, and will do the same for the 2021 sequel. Expect to see Hugh Bonneville (Earl of Grantham), Elizabeth McGovern (Lady Cora), Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary), Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith), Allen Leech (Tom Branson), Joanne Froggat (Mrs. Bates), Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates), Imelda Staunton (Lady Bagshaw), and of course, Maggie Smith (the Dowager Countess).

According to Bonneville, the cast was eager to make the sequel. “We would love to do it, we are desperate to do it, and I think it’s the sort of pleasurable release of a movie like the first one was, that audiences would enjoy after all of this mess we have been through," he said on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show.

Dominic West, Hugh Dancy, and more have joined the cast.

Along with the announcement of the sequel, Focus Features revealed four actors are joining the cast: Dominic West (The Affair), Hugh Dancy (Hannibal), Natalie Baye (Catch Me If You Can), and Laura Haddock (White Lines). Their roles haven't been revealed.

No word yet on the sequel's plot.

Set in 1927, the first Downton Abbey movie followed the drama that ensued when King Albert and Queen Mary visited the estate—including an assassination attempt on the king. How ever will the Downton Abbey sequel live up to that? We don't know, but we know it will.

Watch the Downton Abbey movie

Watch Downton Abbey

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