After more than 15 years of begging for reunions, “Friends” fans are finally having their day, their week, their month and maybe even their year. The original cast will officially end its break for a reunion special this spring, WarnerMedia confirmed on Friday.
The six original cast members — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer — will all reunite for an untitled, unscripted special on HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s new streaming service. The special will film on the comedy’s original soundstage, Stage 24, on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank, California.
The streaming wars have allowed the iconic show to live on far past its finale in 2004. The beloved sitcom had been a fixture on Netflix since January 2015, but moved off the streaming service at the start of 2020 and will soon “pivot” to HBO Max exclusively.
“It’s happening,” all of the cast members wrote on Instagram on Friday.
“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,” said Kevin Reilly, chief content officer, HBO Max and president, TBS, TNT, and truTV. “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.”
Ben Winston will direct and executive produce the special along with original “Friends” executive producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane and co-executive producers Emma Conway and James Longman. Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer will also executive produce the special.
The reunion special, along with all 236 episodes of the original series, will be available to HBO Max subscribers when the platform launches in May 2020. Can’t wait until then? TBS recently announced it will air every episode of “Friends” for the next four weeks, weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on the TBS channel and app.
