Coming Soon: 'American Downton Abbey'

We've got an early Christmas present for Downton Abbey addicts: The show's creator, Julian Fellowes, is writing a sort of American version of the show, the Telegraph reports. The Gilded Age will look at the lives of wealthy New York society members in the 1880s. NBC has commissioned the "epic tale of the princes of the American Renaissance and the vast fortunes made—and spent." Fellowes is working on the pilot and a fourth season of Downton simultaneously.

"This was a vivid time with dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls; of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry; a time when money was king,” said Fellowes of the era. NBC says it's "thrilled" to be working with Fellowes. (More Julian Fellowes stories.)