A Friends reunion special is officially greenlit for Warner Bros. streaming service HBO Max, reuniting all six original cast members. A staple of NBC’s “Must See TV” Thursday night lineup, Friends recently passed its 25th anniversary, but love for the show hasn’t wained. The series was initially available on Netflix, which introduced a younger generation to the series in 2015 when it added the show to its streaming roster. Recently, Netflix lost the rights to run the show, and Warner Bros. announced HBO Max, their new streaming service, would have exclusive rights to air the series.
Friends centered on a group of 20-somethings in New York City, following their professional, personal, and romantic lives, which all converged around the unbelievably large apartments they shared, and the coffee shop they frequented. There’s been talk of a Friends reunion since the show when off the air in 2004, but recent negotiations kept stalling over budget concerns. Stars Jennifer Anniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer have been cagey about reprising their iconic roles until recently.
Deadline reports that Warner Bros. has secured the entire cast to return to Stage 24 (where the show was originally filmed) for a one-hour, unscripted reunion special. The special and all 236 episodes of the series will be available to subscribers on day one of HBO Max. Reuniting the cast is rumored to have cost Warner Bros. TV upwards of $4 million per actor. The cast will also serve as executive producers on the series along with the show’s creators Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane. Ben Winston will also executive produce in addition to directing the special, which is produced by FulWell 73 - the company behind The Late Late Show with James Corden - alongside Warner Bros. Unscripted & Alternative Television.
Chief content officer for HBO Max Kevin Reilly joked, “Guess you could call this the one where they all got back together,” a reference to the naming-scheme Friends used for each of its episodes throughout its 10-season run. WarnerMedia, who owns HBO Max, spent a whopping $425 million to secure the streaming rights to Friends, as a means to entice subscribers to pay $15 a month for the new service. Their hope is that old and new fans will flock to the service since it will be the only place the show is available to stream. The reunion special, however, might end up attracting subscribers unmoved by the ability to watch old episodes but intrigued enough by the promise of a cast reunion.
The biggest question dangling over this comes from the unscripted nature of the special. Are fans of the original show there to see the actors or the characters they portrayed? It doesn’t seem like the special will answer any questions about the future of the characters after the finale. If that’s the case, HBO Max subscribers should prepare themselves for more of a roundtable discussion rather than a full-fledged continuation of the series. It is likely fans will be treated to more behind the scenes stories from the cast, together again on a re-creation of one of the show’s iconic sets, and if they’re lucky, maybe Matt LeBlanc will ask the others, “How you doin’?”
More: Friends: 10 Things We Need To See In The HBO Reunion Special
Source: Deadline
