The Friends reunion special could film at the end of the summer, according to WarnerMedia Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt.
The get together was supposed to be available on HBO Max on May 27th – the launch date for the streaming service – but the coronavirus crisis shut down production and there have been conflicting reports about how much was completed.
Matt LeBlanc suggested the reunion had been filmed during a recent taped appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, which aired days before the entire Friends cast offered up tickets for a live taping of the show as part of an All-In Challenge charity raffle online.
Now, Greenblatt has made it clear there’s nothing in the can and the special is months away.
“At first we thought, shows will be delayed for a month or two at the most, and now it seems like it’s going to be far longer than that,” he tells Variety. “We’re holding out for being able to get this special done hopefully by the end of the summer, if the stars align, and hopefully we can get back into production.
“We do think there’s a value to having a big, raucous live audience to experience these six great friends coming back together and we didn’t want to just suddenly do it on a web call with, you know, six squares and people shooting from their kitchens and bedrooms…
“We’re trying to look to the future and get this thing done in a more conventional way, and I think it’s worth waiting for. We would have loved to have had it on HBO Max on Day One.”
Aniston, LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer are all set to return for the event.
