A review of some preview footage--sounds promising.

Someone who's seen some preview footage has a lot of good to say about it:

http://www.filmoria.co.uk/2014/10/paddington-preview-footage-review/

It's interesting that they're giving a few hints as to Mr. Gruber's backstory. As I got older and re-read some of the stories through an older perspective, I rather thought that Mr. Gruber could have been a WWII refugee (though from what I read here, the movie doesn't come right out and say that--Nazis would be a little heavy for a kids' movie), but I thought it made more sense in the book's original 1958 timeframe...that Mr. Gruber and whatever family he had got the hell out of Europe in the late thirties once he realized which way the wind was blowing.

I'd like to see them flesh out Mr. Curry the same way. Again, thinking about the character with an older person's perspective, it's possible to see him as a rather pathetic figure. Possibly he's a widower (someone as cheap as he is wouldn't have bought a family-sized home if there wasn't someone to share it with). It would be a shame to waste an actor of Peter Capaldi's caliber on a one-note grumpy guy. (Malcolm Tucker and the Doctor may have their grumpy sides, but they're hardly one-note.)

Another review of the footage confirms that although it takes place in the modern era, there's a rather retro look to this London. (At the train cafe, they are served a teapot rather than styrofoam cups.)