It's time for The One With the Reunion Special. Deadline has revealed that the HBO Max Friends Reunion Special will start filming in Los Angeles next week after significant COVID-related delays put the reunion on hold in 2020. The special was originally meant to be a part of the streamer's launch offerings last May.
Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc will all be returning to play their iconic characters in the special, but there's a bit of a twist — nothing's scripted. Schwimmer did reveal to Graham Norton that the cast would be reading something at some point during the episode, but no details were given.
The setting is exactly as it should be, with the special taking place in Rachel and Monica's apartment. According to Deadline's report, the special is designed to join all of the series' whopping 236 episodes together in one special event. Who knows how they'll be able to pull such a thing off, but it seems likely that most fans of the series won't care about the logistics of it all once the special gets rolling.
Ben Winston will be directing the reunion, with Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer all producing alongside Friends creators Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane. Emma Conway and James Longman will act as co-executive producers on the project as well.
With filming just beginning amidst some still pretty complicated COVID protocols in Los Angeles County, there's currently no official news on a release date. However, rumors hint at sometime in May.
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