COVID was a nightmare for cinemas, cinemagoers and producer Gareth Neame – when he filmed the Granthams on the Riviera
Downton’s tricky French lessons
W
hen was the last time you went out to see a film? I know we all watch them at home and a combo of Netflix and big domestic screens and speakers means we all have our own sort of cinema, in a way. Box-office income has thankfully gradually started to increase, but might 2022 be the year to really tempt you back? And more specifically might Downton Abbey: A New Era be the film to do it? I think it really is rather good – so I do hope so. Total box-office revenues in the UK and Ireland in 2021 rose 85 per cent to £597 million from the nadir of 2020’s £323 million. However, these numbers remain far below pre-pandemic levels, when the annual box office exceeded £1.3 billion in each of the five years up to 2019. This has already started to affect the new films that get put into production. Frankly, the viability of your nearest cinema continues to be challenged as never before in your lifetime. It really is down to you to help, I’m afraid. In 2016, having concluded six seasons (as we all now call them!) of Britain’s biggest TV drama hit – and more importantly our biggest TV export – the logical next move seemed to be the big screen. The brilliant cast understandably wanted a break from the routine to explore other projects, but their affection for Downton meant an occasional cinematic return was in the offing. And, in those golden pre-ghastliness days of 2019, the first film was released to great aplomb, becoming No 1 in North American and UK box offices. The transition from a hit TV show to the big screen is a stony path. My 28 The Oldie Spring 2022
Downton Abbaye – the French sequel
partners at Focus Features were quite understandably cautious about risking the sums of money involved. Would a global fan base leave their comfy sofas for the movies? Fortunately, the audience turned out in droves. Very quickly, the conversation turned to what was next for the Crawleys and Downton. As always, this was a discussion between Downton’s writer, Julian Fellowes, and me. As we generally follow the natural chronology of the main characters, the year was to be 1928-29. We first alighted on a story based on the making of the movie Blackmail (1929). This started production as a silent film, switching to sound when director Alfred Hitchcock realised, following the
release of The Jazz Singer (1927), that his film would be behind the curve. My grandfather Ronald Neame, later the producer of Brief Encounter (1945), Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), and director of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), worked on that very film as a young assistant cameraman. His mother, the global beauty Ivy Close (1890-1968), was an actress whose career began to fade with the advent of talkies. She was from the great town of Stockton-on-Tees – so I do wonder whether her own accent struggled to make it across the Atlantic, a predicament experienced by the character Myrna Dalgleish in our film. Downton’s home is Highclere Castle, now rightly a beloved and famous historic house, which means we have to negotiate our time there with the many other events our hosts Lord and Lady Carnarvon undertake. One practical solution has been to create stories where the Crawleys have stayed with family friends in Scotland and Northumberland and enjoyed the London season – all places toffs of that time might have legitimately visited. But we have never taken these characters abroad. The time had come for us to see the Crawleys go to the Riviera, to echo what the great and the good would have done in the 1920s. At that time, what had been a winter escape was becoming increasingly popular for well-heeled American and British holiday makers. And, from a commercial point of view, France was the third biggest market after the US and the UK for the first film – so it felt fitting to set some of our story there. With the premise of our next film
