Ring the dinner gong and line up the servants! Eight years after the lavish upstairs/downstairs series Downton Abbey aired its final episode, the Crawley family is reportedly coming back for season 7. “The production has been shrouded in secrecy and word is, the cast and crew have signed nondisclosures, but filming has begun,” a source exclusively tells Life & Style. “There’s no doubt they’re shooting at Highclere Castle and new cast members have been added.”
Fans were treated to two theatrical outings after the series ended, 2019’s Downton Abbey, in which the family hosted the king and queen of England, and Downton Abbey: A New Era, which took the action to the south of France — and brought a silent-film crew to Downton — in 2022. The fact that the films earned a combined $287.4 million at the box office no doubt has something to do with the reboot, but creator Julian Fellowes (who also created Max’s The Gilded Age) has always said never say never. “I have said goodbye to Downton so many times, and I have written the last scene about six or seven times,” he teased last year. “Now I’ve got out of the habit of making permanent statements whether it’s gone.”
