A few months after rumors of an unscripted Friends reunion special began to propagate, Deadline reports that a deal is finally close to being reached. Unsurprisingly, the negotiations that resulted in this reunion were said to have been extremely difficult, but Deadline claims that Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and Matthew Perry have all reached an agreement in principle with Warner Bros. TV to do an hour-long special on
Although no parties were willing to comment on the supposed reunion, Deadline says the stars will be paid between $3 million – $4 million. In total, around $20 million will be spent to bring Joey, Phoebe, Ross, Rachel, Chandler, and Monica back together, which is about what Netflix pays major comedians for stand-up specials.
According to the report, there was some discussion about this reunion last fall, but negotiations halted at the end of the year when Warner Bros. TV couldn’t meet the expectations of the actors. This lasted through the end of the year and into January, but shortly after the TCA in January, the two parties met once again and were able to make a deal. Not long after, Matthew Perry shared a cryptic tweet which many assume refers to the reunion:
Big news coming…
— matthew perry (@MatthewPerry) February 5, 2020
Friends co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane have made it clear more than once that they have no interest in a scripted sequel or reboot of any kind, but they are expected to be involved in this project. AT&T has already secured the streaming rights to the entire original series of Friends for a reported $425 million, but bringing all of the cast back together one more time will undoubtedly turn more than a few heads.
