The highly anticipated Friends reunion was confirmed in February earlier this year. The untitled unscripted special will mark the return of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer for the celebration for the long-running sitcom. As per reports, the reunion was supposed to be available on May 27 when the streaming service of HBO Max launches. But, amid coronavirus pandemic, the taping has been postponed.
WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer chairman Bob Greenblatt said that they could tape the reunion special this summer. Speaking to Variety, he said, “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. 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.”
For now, they are exploring a virtual way of doing it since that is the only option. “But at the moment, 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,” he added. “We would have loved to have had it on [HBO Max on] Day One, but at the same time, if we can get it launched in the fall, I think it’ll be something that we can have the audience really looking forward to as well.”
Variety earlier reported that each cast member will receive $ 2.5 million dollars for being a part of the HBO special.
