A ‘FRIENDS’ Reunion Special Is Coming to HBO Max Soon With Original Cast Members Returning

We’ll probably never know what they’re feeding the smelly cat, but at least we can get to see Phoebe Buffay sing the damn song perhaps one more time. Friends fans are in for a treat this year as the beloved sitcom nears a deal to return for a reunion special. The show’s original cast—Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer—are expected to reprise their roles as well.

According to Deadline, the upcoming unscripted special will be one of HBO Max’s flagship shows offered on the service and will run for an hour. Negotiations for the reunion special reached an impasse in the latter part of 2019, with sources citing compensation negotiations failing to reach an agreement. The talks later resumed early this year and yielded positive responses on both the actors’ and Warner Bros. Television’s side. WBTV is reportedly shelling out $20 million for the Friends reunion special, with each of the main cast receiving between $3-4 million for appearing in it.

Friends co-creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman are rumored to be involved in the reunion special, which WBTV hopes to help build hype around reruns of the sitcom on HBO Max.

Back in September, though, Kauffman killed all hopes for a reunion special nor a reboot during a Friends panel at the Tribeca TV Festival. “We will not be doing a reunion show, we will not be doing a reboot,” Kauffman said. “The show was about that time in life when friends are your family,” she explained, adding that a reboot will not beat what they already did with the show. “We did the show we wanted to do. We got it right, and we put a bow on it,” Crane also added.

Despite being off the air since 2004, Friends remains one of the most-binge-watched shows back when it was still with Netflix. The show also recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, with Aniston commemorating the event by posting a selfie with the rest of the cast as her first Instagram photo.

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