Downton Abbey follow-up project 'put on hold'

Dame Maggie Smith and Michelle Dockery star in Downton Abbey. Nick Briggs/Carnival Film & Television Limited for Masterpiece via Bloomberg

Anyone looking forward to Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes' next project - dubbed by some as the 'American Downton' - best resign themselves to a lengthy wait.

The Independent newspaper reports that, while speaking at a television industry event in Los Angeles, Fellowes suggested he would postpone writing The Gilded Age until he had finished working on Downton Abbey.

The hugely-popular British series about an aristocratic family will return to television in the autumn for its fourth series, while a fifth is in the pipeline.

Fellowes told guests an Emmys event that he was annoyed by the constant speculation about when Downton Abbey would end.

“The newspapers keep saying we have an end date [for Downton Abbey], but we don’t. The question is how long they will wait for Gilded Age and when will Downton finish up, and we just don’t know those answers right now,” he said.

“We’re always reading in the papers when it’s ending, but we don’t know when it’s ending ourselves so how can some journalists know? I think it’s still got some legs to it,” he added.

When questioned over which show would take priority for his time, he answered: “Oh, I couldn’t answer that.”

In February, Fellowes was commissioned by the US network NBC to write The Gilded Age, a drama set in 19th century New York that will concern the “princes of the American Renaissance”.

NBC was originally offered the chance to broadcast Downton Abbey in the US, but turned it down. Instead, it was picked up by PBS and went on to become the most-watched drama programme in the channel’s history.