‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ Trailer Features Wedding, Mystery & New Stars (VIDEO)

Focus Features has released the full official trailer for Downton Abbey: A New Era, the upcoming sequel to the popular British period drama’s 2019 big-screen debut.

The trailer (watch below) focuses on the film’s two main plot points, a “moving picture” being filmed at Downton and a mysterious villa in the South of France inherited by Dame Maggie Smith‘s Dowager Countess. In the midst of all this drama, preparations are being made for Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton) and Tom Branson’s (Allen Leech) lavish wedding.

“You never thought to turn it down?” Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) asks the Dowager Countess of her surprise villa. “Do I look as if I’d turn down a villa, in the South of France?,” Granny bluntly replies.

The Countess also doesn’t seem to be the biggest fan of the movies, as she takes exception to the sudden influx of cameras and film crew on the Grantham estate. “It seems the public only want films that talk,” says Baroness Merton (Penelope Wilton). “I should have thought the best thing about films is that you can’t hear them,” the Countess quips. “It’d be even better if you couldn’t see them either.”

Downton creator and Oscar winner Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay for the upcoming sequel, which sees the return of original cast members Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Joanne Froggatt, Robert James-Collier, Imelda Staunton, and more.

New additions include Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye, and Dominic West. Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn) is set to direct.

The film is scheduled to be released on April 29, 2022, in the U.K., and in the U.S. and Canada on May 20, 2022. The release date was pushed back from March due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is expected to be streamable in the U.S. on Peacock on July 4, 45 days after its U.S. theatrical release.