New ‘Downton Abbey’ movie to pay tribute to Maggie Smith
A new Downton Abbey film is set to be released in September 2025 and will include a tribute to the late Maggie Smith, who played the formidable dowager countess Violet Crawley in the original series.
Smith passed away in September at 89, and although her character was killed off in the 2022 film Downton Abbey: A New Era, the producers of the upcoming movie have said that she will be referenced in some way.
Speaking to TVLine earlier this week, Downton producer Gareth Neame said that the loss of Smith gave deeper meaning to the mourning that the characters express on screen. “The fact that Dame Maggie herself has now passed away since that time, I do think, has given a real added poignancy to a story that we would have planned anyway,” he said, adding that it’s not just the characters who are mourning, but that the actors are mourning “the matriarch of the show.” He went on to say that the respect that Smith instilled in her fellow cast members “will come across in the next movie.”
Smith instantly became a fan favourite of the series during its debut season in 2010. Playing the breezily sharp-tongued mother of Hugh Bonneville’s Earl of Grantham, her one-liners and no-nonsense approach to her extravagant privilege delighted viewers and earned her three Emmy Awards. The character’s death had been hinted at as early as 2019, but when she finally said her farewell in the 2022 movie, it left many viewers in tears.
What we know about the new Downton Abbey movie
Neame’s comments came during an interview about the next Downton instalment, which rounds out the film trilogy. Expected to be released in mid-September of 2025, the film remains shrouded in mystery, though most of the original cast is set to return.
It was also announced that Paul Giamatti will be reprising his role as Harold Levison from the series and Dominic West will be reprising his role as Guy Dexter from the second film. Simon Russell Beale and Joely Richardson will be among the new additions to the cast.
The second film was set in 1928, one year after the events in the first film, and followed the Crawleys as they visited the south of France to investigate the Dowager Countess’s inherited villa.
Julian Fellowes, who created the series, is returning as screenwriter for the third movie, and Simon Curtis, who directed the second film, will be returning as director.