People have been excited about the prospect of a Friends reunion, and now there is confirmation. Variety is reporting that the untitled unscripted special will be calling HBO Max home. All of the cast will return for the special and be making the trek back to the soundstage where it all started. Stage 24 on Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank. When the series ended in 2004, fans thought they had seen the last of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer all together. But, each of the main six will be receiving at least $2.5 per person according to reports. With Warner Bros.’s new streaming platform needing as much content as possible, it’s a no-brainer to fire up a major crowd-pleaser for the early days of HBO Max. All of the episodes will be available on the platform on day one along with the special. Needless to say, people who love the series are going to be thrilled at the mere prospect of the special.
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Previous reports indicated that the special would be a part of the streaming services launch, but now things have been made more real. $20 million is reported to be the cost of the special overall. Series creators David Crane and Mara Kauffman are supposed to be back for this project as well. Netflix helped keep the show fresh in fans’ minds during the early years of streaming and now that has created a demand for even more. The writing was on the wall the second all these different services started popping up.
All of the stars have commented on these developments in some way. Anniston is on record as saying the idea of a reunion would be fun. She said last year, “We would love for there to be something, but we don’t know what that something is. So we’re just trying. We’re working on something.” David Schwimmer said just last week that there was nothing official, but it looks like things have changed in a big way. Still, the end goal for Warner Bros. has always been getting out content that people care about. Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max and president of TBS, TNT, and truTV, basically said this in a statement alongside the announcement:
“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,” Reilly said. “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.”
