Feb. 21 (UPI) — HBO Max confirmed Friday that a “Friends” reunion special is officially happening, with original cast members Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer participating.
Aniston fueled rumors of a reunion when she posed for a selfie with her five “Friends” co-stars. Later, on an appearance on Ellen on Oct. 28, she told Ellen Degeneres and singer Charlie Puth, “We would love for there to be something, but we don’t know what that something is. We’re working on something.”
HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly has been trying to secure the special. He told the Television Critics Association on Jan. 15 that it was still a “maybe.” On Friday, HBO Max confirmed the special in a news release.
The six original “Friends” will reunite on Stage 24 on the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, Calif., where the original NBC series filmed for 10 seasons. The special will be available at the launch of HBO Max in May.
HBO Max will also become the streaming home for all 10 seasons of “Friends.” The episodes were previously on Netflix. TBS currently broadcasts reruns on TV and streams them on the TBS app.
“Guess you could call this the one where they all got back together,” Reilly said in the news release. He was making a reference to the naming of every “Friends” episode whose titles began either “The One With…” or “The One Where…”
Creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane return as executive producers, along with Kevin Bright and Ben Winston as EPs. Winston will direct the special.
“Friends” began in 1994 and anchored NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup for 10 years. Rachel (Aniston), Monica (Cox), Phoebe (Kudrow), Joey (LeBlanc), Chandler (Perry) and Ross (Schwimmer) lived in New York apartments across the hall from each other and gathered at the coffee shop Central Perk.
Ross and Rachel were a series-long will they/won’t they. Chandler and Monica ended up married by the show’s end. Phoebe was a singer with fan-favorite tunes like “Smelly Cat.” And a Joey spinoff ran two years after “Friends” ended.
