Gather your scrying bones and get those tea leaves cooking, because the prophecy has finally come to pass: A modern TV show has achieved the vaunted “six seasons and a movie” milestone at last. Just, uh, not the one that came up with the phrase in the first place, as we regret to inform you that you did not, in fact, get a Community notification for this, with Deadline reporting that the previously announced Downton Abbey movie has set a shooting date and confirmed the return of most of its original cast.
Focus Features has officially set a start date for the film for this summer, complete with the return of Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, and pretty much everyone else who survived the character-shedding bloodbath that was Downton Abbey, Seasons 1-6. There’s no word yet on where the film will take the Crawley family—who ended the series on a resolutely happy note…for now—but we can only hope the addition of a big, movie-sized budget will allow Julian Fellowes to finally get some special effects up in this mother, because if they’re not going to take the opportunity to Independence Day the shit out of the Abbey itself by movie’s end, what’s even the fucking point? (We would also accept “Dan Stevens returns to reveal that the entire series has been a hallucination in David Haller’s head.” Hit us up, J-Fellowes.)