Friends: David Arquette Encouraged the Cast to Negotiate Return As a Group

David Arquette encouraged the cast to negotiate their return to Friends as a group. Andy Cohen had the star join him on Radio Andy on SiriusXM. They talked about Arquette’s career, but the topic eventually turned to the highly-anticipated Friends Reunion on HBO Max. That project has been getting whispered about for a long time now and only got revealed a couple of months ago. When fans heard that the entire cast was back in the saddle for the special, a lot of observers wondered how they managed to get the whole group back without any slip-ups. Each person played their role, but it is clear that Arquette’s suggestion to negotiate as a unit rather than separately obviously greased the wheels when it came to the Friends Reunion special.

“I was on the side of everybody stick together, I think it will be a better thing, but obviously they had their whole teams … that really did it,” Arquette explained.

However, a Variety report also indicates that Courteney Cox was also instrumental in getting the revival off the ground. When the project was pitched to the entire group, they met at the actress’ house in Malibu. Instead of the supposed reunion dinner, things got nostalgic and when the topic of bringing everyone back for the send-off was broached, the entire cast was in favor of that decision. WarnerMedia executives had been laying the groundwork for that moment all day and let Cox in on the plans. Their gamble that familiarity would help state their case paid off in a big way.

“Everyone was lending a hand because they had to and because it was exciting,” Bob Greenblatt, a lead executive at HBO Max said at the time. “But we knew we couldn’t move quickly if we were asking people to do two jobs. We had to fire up a network, in old-fashioned terms… We didn’t have the luxury of spending three to six months figuring out what product we wanted to build and what the service should or shouldn’t be. All of our decisions had to be made quickly.”

Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer are all expected to return for the long-awaited special. With the coronavirus pandemic still going on, fans will have to wait a little while longer. Series creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman will be there for the project.

Are you excited about the Friends Reunion? Let us know down in the comments!