Champagne, champagne: Perhaps this isn't the darkest timeline after all, as "six seasons and a movie" are now actually happening. Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash, and Ken Jeong will return for a movie adaptation of the Dan Harmon comedy "Community," which will follow the antics of the Greendale gang since the show's 2015 finale.
The talks for Peacock to get the movie were "heavily competitive," according to Peacock and Sony Pictures TV, who jointly announced the approval on Friday. In addition, Peacock has obtained non-exclusive rights to all six seasons of the television series "Community," which are already available on Netflix and Hulu.
Along with Andrew Guest, the movie's executive producer and writer is Harmon, creator of "Community." Along with Gary Foster and Russ Krasnoff, McHale also serves as EP. The studios on the show are Sony Pictures TV and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. (NBC broadcast "Community" for five of its six seasons; one of the show's production firms was Universal TV, which shared studio leadership with Sony.))
According to Susan Rovner, chairman, entertainment content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, "'Six seasons and a movie' started out as a sarcastic remark from 'Community's early seasons and quickly inspired a passionate fan movement for this iconic, hilarious, and cool (cool, cool) NBC comedy." We are so appreciative that, 15 years later, we can finally give fans the film they were promised, and we can't wait to get to work with Dan Harmon, Andrew Guest, Joel McHale, Sony, and our partners at UTV to continue this epic comedy for Peacock viewers.
A director and a projected premiere date have not yet been announced, among other details. The possibility of future appearances, or at least cameos, by other important "Community" cast members, such as Yvette Nicole Brown and Donald Glover, remains unanswered. (It's safe to assume Chevy Chase, whose character eventually died and with whom the show had a falling out, won't be back.)
'Community's' initial run, from 2009 to 2015, was quite the roller coaster. The programme premiered in the fall of 2009 on NBC, where it appeared to exist constantly in limbo. The show, which was initially pitched as a comedy about strangers who become friends in a community college study group, quickly evolved into an experiment in dissecting the sitcom format, garnering praise from critics and a devoted following for its meta jokes, spoofs of TV tropes, and distinctive characters.
Abed Nadir (Pudi), Britta Perry (Jacobs), Annie Edison (Brie), Shirley Bennett (Brown), Troy Barnes (Glover), Pierce Hawthorne (Chase), teacher-turned-student Ben Chang (Jeong), and Greendale Dean Craig Pelton were also members of the group. Retired lawyer Jeff Winger (McHale) served as the de facto leader (Rash). Several other actors, such as John Oliver, Jonathan Banks, Paget Brewster, and Keith David, had significant roles in the programme.
After Season 3, NBC and Sony fired Harmon and brought in new executive producers because they believed "Community" hadn't attracted a large enough mainstream viewership. However, Harmon was re-instated as a result of vigorous campaigning by McHale and the rest of the cast after Season 4 (nicknamed the "gas leak season") enraged viewers.
Nevertheless, near the end of "Community's" fifth season, NBC eventually cancelled the show after years of waffling. The story didn't end there, though. Sony pitched a Season 6 to Hulu, the show's streaming rights holder, as well as its then-sister ad-supported streamer Crackle. However, none of those channels could make it profitable. Then Yahoo! Screen pledged 13 episodes at the show's prior episode cost of $2 million.
It was beneficial for "Community," but not so much for Yahoo!, which discovered that its investment considerably outweighed any earnings from the programme. After 110 episodes and the conclusion of Season 6, "Community" was officially over, as was Yahoo! Screen.
But in the end, the agreement brought about the first part of the show's ironic "six seasons and a movie" prophecy. Abed (Pudi) said that line for the first time in the Season 2 episode "Paradigms of Human Memory."
According to Jason Clodfelter, co-president of Sony Pictures Television Studios, "'Community' was light years ahead of its time when it launched on NBC in 2009, and we are excited to once again visit the creative minds of Dan Harmon, Andrew Guest, and this great cast." We are appreciative of Peacock, our collaborators at UTV, and all the passionate viewers who have appreciated this legendary show.
Erin Underhill, president of Universal TV, continued, "This franchise is the absolute essence of community. We can't wait to reunite the band and carry the story of these adored characters forward.
"Community" generated a huge fan base that even has its own unofficial fan-led convention and won a Primetime Emmy for outstanding individual accomplishment in animation during its run. Naturally, the cast members of "Community" have all moved on to other widely regarded ventures since the show's run concluded.
The idea of a movie has been discussed for years, even before "Community" ended. Before the sixth season of Community even premiered on Yahoo! Screen in 2014, then-Sony Pictures Television programming president Zack Van Amburg predicted that a movie adaptation would probably be made, possibly under the direction of Justin Lin, Anthony Russo, or Joe Russo (all of whom directed episodes of the series). At the time, he stated, "I myself have had those chats."
While avoiding the movie topic at a table read and Q&A in 2020 to support Frontline Foods and José Andrés' World Central Kitchen, the cast—everyone but Chase—hinted they would be up for it if a script were created. (Even Glover gave the impression that he would be up for it.)
At the time, Harmon remarked, "I had these waves come through me when I watch the episodes now of like, first of all, my writers were brilliant and probably didn't get recognised for it as much as maybe I felt the job was." "But secondly... the entire cast is like a basketball court machine that slam dunks everything you put on the court, to put it mildly. Because of our collective achievement, we are all aware that things cannot get any better.
However, rumours that the movie would actually happen remained just that: rumours. Up until a month ago. At that time, Harmon revealed to Newsweek that the movie had a plot. According to Harmon, there is an outline for it. "A product has been developed and distributed throughout the world. That must be the reality, I suppose.
However, Harmon was cautious to agitate the crowd any more, saying: "That's probably plenty that'll make people angry when [there is] nothing in a year. It still doesn't imply that a movie will be released the next day. It implies that there will undoubtedly be one.
