Downton Abbey wins weekend box office with $31 million debut


Downton Abbey had a strong opening weekend, pulling in $31 million during its domestic debut weekend.
This was the biggest opening ever for its distributor, Focus Features. The film, a continuation of the beloved PBS/ITV series that ended in 2016, brought together much of the original cast, including Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Allen Leech, Hugh Bonneville, and Laura Carmichael. It opened in the U.K. last week. In this iteration, the king and queen come to Downton Abbey, and the upstairs and downstairs have very different ways of dealing with the visit.
Coming in second place was Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt, which brought in $19.2 million, with Sylvester Stallone's Rambo: Last Blood a close third with $19 million.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Alchemised: how Harry Potter fanfic went mainstream
In The Spotlight Traditional publishers are signing up fan fiction authors to rewrite their ‘explosively popular’ romances for the mass market
-
Sudoku hard: October 6, 2025
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
-
Crossword: October 6, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91
Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclub
Speed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's ills
Speed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, Stallone
Speed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's view
Speed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talk
Speed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'
Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposes
speed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle