‘Downton’ creator Fellowes planned for the movie to be a final goodbye

The Downton Abbey movie was a huge success in cinemas this autumn, surpassing all expectations.

Plans for a sequel were put in place shortly after it topped the box office in the UK and the US.

Downton creator Julian Fellowes has even started work on the script already!

But it’s emerged that a second movie was never part of his original plan.

In fact, Fellowes always thought that the film would be our last ever trip to Downton.

He told ET Online: “To be perfectly honest, having thought the final episode of the sixth series was the end of the whole thing, which I completely did, I then thought the movie was definitely the end of the whole thing.”

Fellowes tells added: “I thought we were saying goodbye to Downton, and that was that.”

This revelation does explain why some fans felt that the movie was lacking in drama and character development.

Having already given his beloved characters the goodbye he felt was right for them in the TV show’s finale back in 2015, with the exception of Tom Branson and Thomas Barrow, Fellowes was perhaps reticent to undo anyone’s happy endings by bringing any major plot twists in to their lives.

Thus we ended up with a story where very few of the characters’ circumstances changed at all over the course of the movie.

Hopefully, with the possibility of a third movie a safe bet, the second movie’s plot will have room for some of the classic Downton shocks and surprises that gripped us in the TV series.

On the topic of surprises, Dame Maggie Smith recently revealed how she really felt about playing the Dowager Countess.

The Downton Abbey movie is available to on DVD on Amazon.