The take away from this weekend’s box-office results: Do not cross a dame .

Reviving a bejeweled cast that includes Maggie Smith’s haughty Dowager Countess, the film “Downton Abbey” opened to around $31 million in domestic ticket sales this weekend, beating out the Brad Pitt vehicle “Ad Astra” and “Rambo: Last Blood” for top place. The figures vastly exceeded predictions for “Downton” — its distributor, Focus Features, had expected the opening to bring in closer to $20 million.

The film, a sequel to the hit TV show that ran for six seasons, did not stray far from its predecessor’s recipe for success. It brings back the aristocratic Crawley family, who live on the sprawling English estate Downton Abbey, and once again intersperses their dramas with those of the house staff. The film’s plot picks up in 1927, shortly after the TV show’s finale, with the upstairs-downstairs cast of characters readying for a visit from the king and queen.

Reviews of the “Downton Abbey” movie were generally strong (it currently holds an 85 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Marketing flourishes like a behind-the-scenes TV special that aired on NBC last week and a listing on Airbnb for Highclere Castle, the country home where much of the series was shot, likely helped stoke fans’ excitement.

[Read our critic’s review of “Downton Abbey.”]

The movie ’s biggest competitors were two fellow newcomers : 20th Century Fox’s “Ad Astra,” which opened to around $19.2 million in domestic sales; and “Rambo: Last Blood,” which is distributed by Lionsgate and opened to around $19 million.