Donald Glover Reveals Huge Update for the Community Movie

It has been more than a decade since the first time Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) uttered the phrase “six seasons and a movie” in a season two episode of NBC’s beloved sitcom Community. While Abed was not talking about Community when he said it, it nevertheless became a mantra for fans of the series, which seemed to be constantly living on the “cancellation bubble” for most of its original broadcast run. After being cancelled by NBC, Community was revived for a sixth season at now-defunct streaming platform Yahoo! Screen, and at that point, the question became “Where’s the movie?”

It now sounds like the Community movie is closer than ever to being a reality. Donald Glover, who appeared in the first four seasons as a regular cast member and left partway through season five, says there’s finally a completed script.

“I was told that the script — literally, I was texting today — I was told that the script was done,” Glover told ET.

The star added that while he has not read the script yet, “It’s really just a schedule thing [but] I’m in….I’m all in.”

The series ended in 2014, after Yahoo! Screen folded. Prior to the platform’s death, creator Dan Harmon had suggested that Yahoo! was willing to do a seventh season, but that given how famous the cast was becoming, he had decided against trying to bring them all back for a project that could be difficult to manage if they all had other major projects waiting for them.

In 2022, series lead Joel McHale tweeted out an image that simply read “…and a movie,” and tagged various cast members (plus Gillian Anderson on accident; she later joked that she was on board for the movie if they were interested). Since then, the script has been in the works, with an eye toward filming the movie for a Peacock release, not unlike the Psych and Monk spinoff movies.

Community centered on a group of misfits who became friends as part of a study group in a community college. The series starred Joel McHale, Donald Glover, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi, Chevy Chase, and Oscar winner Jim Rash. 

“I’m setting aside all the money to make [the movie] happen,” McHale told ComicBook.com in 2022. “Before when I’d answer the question, I’d be like, ‘Maybe, I have no idea.’ But now, with its success on the streamers during the pandemic, the interest has returned. I would say it’s more likely than it was before, definitely, but it’s like building an aircraft carrier. You go, ‘We’re gonna do this, right? Yeah, okay, everybody’s here, we got the money.’ Now, this thing has to actually get built. There’s a lot more than just ‘Hey, let’s make a movie now, great.’ It’s a lot of moving parts. So I’m more positive than I was, definitely, but we’ll see. That’s a terrible answer, but definitely better than my answer two years ago.”