They’re no longer on a break: the Friends cast are officially getting back together for a reunion special.
People said it’d never happen. ‘Just rumours’, the sceptics online would spout. To them I say: ‘You can’t just give up! Is that what a dinosaur would do?’
It’s actually happening. All six stars – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry – are reuniting exclusively for an untitled unscripted special for HBO Max.
Just months after the iconic sitcom’s 25th anniversary, the stars will return to their original soundstage, Stage 24, on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank to film the special (with Friends creators Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane executive producing).
Alongside the reunion special, all 236 episodes of the Emmy-winning series will be available to subscribers at the launch of HBO Max in May. The upcoming streaming service paid a whopping $425 million for the rights to the sitcom, which was one of Netflix’s most-watched assets.
Kevin Reilly, chief content officer of HBO Max and president of TBS, TNT, and truTV, said:
Guess you could call this the one where they all got back together – we are reuniting with David, Jennifer, Courteney, Matt, Lisa, and Matthew for an HBO Max special that will be programmed alongside the entire Friends library.
I became aware of Friends when it was in the very early stages of development and then had the opportunity to work on the series many years later and have delighted in seeing it catch on with viewers generation after generation.
It taps into an era when friends – and audiences – gathered together in real time and we think this reunion special will capture that spirit, uniting original and new fans.
Deadline‘s sources estimate that each of the six stars – who will also serve as executive producers – will be paid somewhere between $3-$4 million for the show.
The long-awaited confirmation comes hot on the heels of recent hype-building incidents. The cast have been seen together on social media across the stars’ Instagram accounts, with Perry being the latest to join the platform after tweeting: ‘Big news coming…’
It’ll be a huge boost for HBO Max’s launch – since news emerged the sitcom was leaving Netflix, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment told Variety that sales of physical and digital versions of Friends have ‘roughly tripled’ since news broke that it would be leaving Netflix.
‘The One Where They All Get Back Together’ – could we be any more excited?
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.