'Friends' Reunion - Is it On a Break?
We were there for them. Naturally we thought they'd be there for us too, but a January 15th report from Deadline that possibly cans the idea of a Friends reboot has us thinking otherwise.
"The negotiations had recently come to a standstill in an impasse over money," the publication said. It appears that neither the cast nor the producing studio (Warner Bros. TV) could reach an amicable financial agreement.
The cast of Friends were individually banking $1 million per episode by the end of the series' original run. What would that pricetag be like today?
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Kevin Reilly, Chief Creative Office for HBO Max, provided a brief quote on the project's status. “There is interest all around and yet we can’t get the interests all alighted to push the button on it. Today it's just maybe."
Although hype over a Friends reunion has never waned since the show left television airwaves in May 2004, there is one primary source that has consistently lent fuel to the fire as of late - Jennifer Aniston.
Could she BE any more excited?
Rach Jen finally joined Instagram in October 2019 with an Insta-fam eagerly welcoming her. Her first post - the one below - is the cast reunion pic we've all been waiting for.
"And now we’re Instagram FRIENDS too," the caption reads. "HI INSTAGRAM." The photo sits at over 15 million likes with new comments actively appearing as of this writing. It also has us disbelieving that Jen turned 50 last year (and is turning 51 in a few days).
However, this wasn't the most recent mini-reunion-of-sorts that Jen teased us with.
This latest post of Aniston's, dated just three days ago, is already pushing 10 million likes. Although she and other castmates have been both open and hopeful for a reunion, series creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane were very blunt about - from their perspective - its impossibility.
“We will not be doing a reunion show, we will not be doing a reboot," the producing pair said during the series' 25th anniversary panel at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Ouch!
"There are two reasons for that," Kaufman continued. "One of the reasons we won’t do a reunion is because this is a show about a time in your life when your friends are your family. And when you have a family, that changes. But the other reason is it’s not going to beat what we did.”
Ok, it makes sense. Let it be known, though: just because it makes sense doesn't mean we're happy about it.