Downton Abbey a runaway success
Upstairs-downstairs tale lapped up by television fans
The takeaway from this weekend’s box-office results from the US? Do not cross a dame. Reviving a bejewelled cast that includes Maggie Smith’s haughty Dowager Countess, Downton Abbey opened to about US$31 million in domestic ticket sales this weekend, beating out the Brad Pitt vehicle Ad Astra and Rambo: Last Blood for top place. The figures vastly exceeded predictions for Downton — its distributor, Focus Features, had expected the opening to bring in closer to US$20 million.
The film, a sequel to the hit TV show that ran for six seasons, did not stray far from its predecessor’s recipe for success. It brings back the aristocratic Crawley family, who live on the sprawling English estate Downton Abbey. The film’s plot picks up in 1927, shortly after the TV show’s finale, with an upstairs-anddownstairs cast of characters readying for a visit from the king and queen.
Reviews of the Downton Abbey movie were generally strong (it holds an 85 per cent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). A behind-the-scenes TV special that aired last week and a listing on Airbnb for Highclere Castle, the country home where much of the series was shot, likely helped stoke fans’ excitement.
The movie’s biggest competitors were two newcomers: 20th Century Fox’s Ad Astra, which opened to about US$19.2m in domestic sales; and Rambo: Last Blood, which is distributed by Lionsgate and opened to about US$19m.
Ad Astra, the latest from director James Gray, stars Pitt as an astronaut sent into deep space to establish contact with his father (a missing veteran astronaut played by Tommy Lee Jones). The movie comes during a period of renewed excitement around Pitt, whose acclaimed performance in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood had left him with a strong shot at an Academy Award nomination. Ad Astra received generally good reviews, with an 83 per cent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Rambo: Last Blood, which brings back the vicious fighter played by Sylvester Stallone, received much weaker reviews: Its Rotten Tomatoes rating sits at 29 per cent fresh.