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Third ‘Downton Abbey’ Movie Will Pay “Meaningful” Tribute to Maggie Smith: “The Loss of the Dowager Now Feels Far More Significant”

The real-life loss of Maggie Smith will loom large in the third 'Downton Abbey' movie, coming to theaters in September 2025.

As fans of the hit franchise are painfully aware, the second theatrical film (2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era) ended with the death of the Dowager Countess, played by Dame Maggie Smith. “The fact that Dame Maggie herself has now passed away since that time, I do think, has given a real added poignancy to a story that we would have planned anyway,” Downton Abbey executive producer Gareth Neame recently told TVLine while promoting Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal. Echoing the sentiment he initially shared shortly after Smith’s death, Neame calls her loss “the end of an era,” adding that “we will never see the like of Dame Maggie Smith ever again.” He believes that the entire Downton Abbey cast and crew’s “huge respect for her … will come across in in the next movie.”

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