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Apparently, writing a Star Wars movie for Gareth Edwards isn’t enough to satisfy screenwriter Gary Whitta’s iconoclastic needs. How else to explain the fact that he’s not only written, but released online, a crossover between Marvel’s Iron Man and British period drama Downton Abbey?
Downton Abbey: The Stark Ascendancy started life as a joke tweet last week, with Whitta making the mistake of telling Twitter followers that he’d post pages if enough people retweeted his original message. Things… kind of snowballed from there.
People asking how many RTs to trigger Downton/Iron Man crossover pages. Let’s say 500. 127 so far! RT this tweet: https://t.co/peVEQxtenj
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) November 22, 2014
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Uh-oh, blew through 500 RTs. Guess I’m posting pages on Monday! Will do extra if we go over 1000. https://t.co/peVEQxtenj
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) November 22, 2014
So close to 1000 retweets! 1000+ RTs gets you the entire first act of DOWNTON ABBEY: THE STARK ASCENDANCY on Monday! https://t.co/S2pDAZh5mD
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) November 23, 2014
1000+ RTs GET! I’ll post Act 1 of DOWNTON ABBEY: THE STARK ASCENDANCY on Monday morning. It will be terrible. But you get what you pay for.
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) November 23, 2014
After getting more 1,200 retweets for the original message, Whitta made good on his promise — well, kind of; he falls down on that “it will be terrible” part, with the screenplay being a particularly enjoyable slice of fan service for those who love both Marvel and Downton. After all, who would have thought that Lord Grantham’s servants would be behind the origin story of Jarvis? And yet, it makes such sense in retrospect.
Somewhere, someone is trying to work out if the internal chronology of the Iron Man and Peggy Carter mythology allows Howard Stark to make an appearance in England in 1927. Me, I’m hoping that this means we can hope for Downton Abbey Easter eggs to be found in future Star Wars movies — and that Whitta gets around to writing further chapters of The Stark Ascendancy sooner rather than later, as well.
The screenplay is available to download from here.
Read more ‘Star Wars’ Stand-Alone Writer Gary Whitta to Pen ‘Starlight’ for Fox (Exclusive)
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