After confirmation that a movie version of "Downton Abbey" will happen, creator Julian Fellowes has finally offered some new details about the planned project.
In an interview with The Mirror, Fellowes said he has already started working on a script for the feature film. But since getting the original cast back together may not be possible, the much-awaited movie will have to be a prequel.
"The difficulty is rounding up the actors who have now gone off to the four corners of the earth, in Hollywood, on Broadway, doing plays, doing series and so on," the 67-year-old novelist said, adding, "I think it would be possible to do a prequel that was re-cast and do a love story — so you went right back and had the young cast arriving in the show as footmen and Mrs. Patmore [Lesley Nicol] being a kitchen maid."
If Fellowes cannot wrangle all of the original cast members, the movie version of "Downton Abbey" could most likely take place 30 years before the timeline of the original series and might star younger actors. It will probably show the seventh Earl of Grantham, Robert Crawley, played by Hugh Bonneville in the TV series, serving in the Second Boer War.
The prequel could also feature Robert and Cora's (Elizabeth McGovern) wedding and the beginnings of Violet Crawley's (Maggie Smith) feud with Martha Levinson (Shirley MacLaine). However, Fellowes could be making fans wait a long time to find out how the proposed movie will play out as the "Downton Abbey" movie will not start shooting until 2018.
"We are working on getting the script right and then we've got to figure out how to get the [cast] together," NBCUniversal International Studios president Michael Edelstein told the Associated Press. "Because, as you know, people go on and do other things. But we're hopeful to make a movie sometime next year."
