On September 22, 1994, TV audiences got six new pals with the cast of the hit NBC series Friends. Now, decades later, we’ve watched Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green), Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay), Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing) and David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) take on numerous other roles through the years.
The friend group went from aimless 20-somethings to grown-ups with great careers, less complicated love lives and growing families during the show’s 10-season run. Still, fans cannot forget the iconic Central Perk frequenters, leading to chatter about a revival.
“Y’all should do a Friends reunion. I know people keep asking that,” Ellen DeGeneres told Aniston during a February 2018 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “Is it even in the realm of possibility?”
The actress gave viewers an optimistic reply. “Anything is a possibility, Ellen,” she declared. “Anything! Right?”
Aniston later admitted that the male cast members were the ones holding up a revival. “The girls always say we would love to do it again, and the boys are a little less excited about it for some reason,” she said on The Late Late Show With James Corden in December 2018.
Cox did not seem as on board with the idea in October 2018. “People ask us all the time would we ever do a remake and that was a story about this group of people, they were friends in their 30s and they were finding themselves and I think there’s really … I don’t know that there’s a way to redo it,” she told reporters. “It’s not like the other shows that have done reboots and are doing so well. I just don’t see it happening even though I would do anything to be in a room with all of those people acting, having a great time — but I just don’t see it happening.”
In 2020, HBO Max announced that the original cast would reunite for the first time for an unscripted reunion special. While it was set to be available when the streaming service launched in May, it was pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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