“I have very little to say except that I think it very charming and kind of you all to give us your Sunday night,” said a disarming Julian Fellowes at the NYC premiere of Downton Abbey: A New Era last Sunday.
Distributor Focus Features – and the broader industry — hopes audiences will give the film many more Sunday nights, and other days and dayparts, jumpstarting the return to theaters of older demos.Downton opens this weekend on over 3,800 screens, not a specialty release but leading here as a bellwether for that elusive audience, a staple of arthouses, that had raised hopes briefly by turning out for No Die To Die last fall.
Lingering Covid jitters or an entrenched streaming habit have kept the 45-plus crowd sparse in cinemas even as they flock to restaurants and other public activities.
The hope is that the Downton franchise will prove beloved as Bond, as enduring as Spider-Man, for its numerous fans.“If it does well, people will start putting films out there,” said one distribution executive.
Read more on deadline.com