The Crawleys play host to a royal guest in their sumptuous return to the screen. King George V himself is dropping in on the family in the feature film “Downton Abbey” that continues the events of the hit show, according to the first trailer released Tuesday.
And everyone is on hand for the occasion, including Jim Carter as butler Charles Carson coming out of retirement. Even Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess has a few quips in store:
“Do you have enough cliches to get through the visit,” she says.
Julian Fellowes, who created the hit TV series, has returned to write the screenplay for the feature. It’s still in the 1920s heydays, but the film takes place in 1927, 18 months after the events of the original series, which ended on New Years’ Eve 1926.
Mary (Michelle Dockery) and her sister Edith (Laura Carmichael) are both settling into married life, Tom Branson (Allan Leech) is still running his automobile business and adjusting best to the changes in the culture in the late 1920s, and butler Carson (Jim Carter) is finding himself in greater health since being forced into retirement at the end of the series.
Matthew Goode and Hugh Bonneville are also returning to their iconic roles as the heads of the Talbot and Grantham families, and joining the cast of the feature are Geraldine James, Imelda Staunton, Simon Jones, David Haig, Tuppence Middleton, Kate Phillips and Stephen Campbell Moore.
Michael Engler is directing from Fellowes’s script. Carnival Films is producing with Gareth Neame as executive producer, and Focus Features is releasing “Downton Abbey,” first in the U.K. on Sept. 13, followed by a release in the U.S. a week later on Sept. 20.
Watch the first full trailer for the film above.