Friends reunion to wait for studio audience

The much-anticipated Friends reunion, which was due this month, is still some time off.

But producers want to wait for the full effect of a studio audience.

It is now scheduled for the end of the US summer (August).

“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,” WarnerMedia Entertainment and Direct-to-Consumer chairman Bob Greenblatt has said. “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.”

But if the current stay-at-home conditions continue indefinitely, the reunion “may go more to a virtual route, if it is delayed too long” (bad idea!).

“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 said. “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.”

The reunion is expected to screen in Australia through Foxtel after their deal last week with Warner Media.

Source: Variety