Update 2/21/20: It’s official! The Friends reunion is happening, HBO Max announced on Friday. All six stars of the hit NBC sitcom — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc — will return for an unscripted reunion event at HBO Max, the new WarnerMedia streaming service that will feature the series on its library. Get more details and see Instagram posts from the stars.
2/7/20: That Friends reunion special might not be DOA after all. New reporting indicates that all six stars of the iconic sitcom may have finally reached an agreement with HBO Max to appear in that much-fussed Friends reunion event for the WarnerMedia streaming service, which launches this May with Friends as an (expensive) essential part of its library.
Deadline reports that Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc have a deal in place with Warner Bros. TV to star in a one-hour special for HBO Max, with each earning around $3-4 million for their time. Having them all sign the dotted line at once would certainly follow in the group’s own tradition; the cast famously worked together to renegotiate their contracts during the course of Friends, insisting on equal pay.
Perhaps coincidentally, Matthew Perry teased that “big news is coming” this week on Twitter and then got a warm welcome to Instagram by Lisa Kudrow, who shared a Throwback Thursday photo of the two together — a taste of what goodies they’ll have to share with fans in the reunion?
Big news coming…
— matthew perry (@MatthewPerry) February 5, 2020
HBO Max did not immediately respond to TV Guide’s request for comment.
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This development comes just weeks after HBO Max boss Kevin Reilly expressed uncertainty that a reunion special was actually coming together for Friends fans. At the Television Critics Association winter tour in January, he told reporters, “There’s interest all the way around [for a Friends cast reunion], and yet we can’t seem to quite get that interest sort of all aligned to push the button on it. So today, unfortunately, it’s still a maybe.” Perhaps they were just on a break with contract negotiations at the time.
Rumors of this Friends cast reunion first emerged in November, with the expectation that it would be an unscripted cast event, rather than a scripted revival or reboot of the series.
Friends will be available to stream on HBO Max when the service launches in May.
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Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and Matthew Perry, Friends