The release date of the hit television series turned movie franchise — Downton Abbey: A New Era — was announced on May 26, Thursday. The central plotline of the film revolves around the mystery of  Dowager Countess' newly inherited villa.

Speaking about the release of this film, director Simon Curtis said, "I’ve been very lucky in that some of the things I’d made in television, like David Copperfield and Cranford, meant I’d had experience working with a big ensemble cast. What’s intimidating about directing Downton, (which I’m sure all the previous directors have also felt), is that there’s no such thing as an easy scene in Downton."

He explained, "There might be as many as four mini-scenes within one bigger scene and four different clusters of conversations that all require coverage from different angles and that all takes time. In this film, we had the usual ensemble of actors, then added in the crew and actors for the film within the film, plus our own crew and that amounted to over 50 setups for one particular dinner scene across three days. It was a relief to get to the end of that scene.”

The returning characters in Downton Abbey: A New Era include the Crawley sisters, Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), and Edith Pelham, now Marchioness of Hexham (Laura Carmichael), and marks the return of Lady Violet, played by Maggie Smith.