The Downton Abbey movie is officially happening

Finally - we have confirmation.

There's been talk of a Downton Abbey movie for quite some time now. It's been back and forth with glimmers of hope along the way. First Jim Carter, who played Mr Carson in the period drama, confirmed it was in the pipeline saying:

"This is the third degree – we’ve been asked to keep ourselves available for dates in the future, that’s an exclusive, but no one has seen a script."

Then, Hugh Bonneville dashed all our hopes when he said a movie was "unlikely":

"There is no script that I have read, or any deal in place, for a Downton movie, so I think it is hugely unlikely. But of course I would love to do it, I think everybody would.”

But now, after all the toing and froing, it's finally been confirmed that it definitely will be happening. According to CBS, Michael Edelstein, who is the president at NBCUniversal International Studios, said:

"There's a movie in the works. It's been in the works for some time. We are working on getting the script right, and then we've got to figure out how to get the [cast] together. Because as you know, people go on and do other things. But we're hopeful to make a movie sometime next year."