Downton Abbey wins weekend box office with $31 million debut

(Image credit: Joe Maher/Getty Images)

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.

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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.