‘Friends’ reunion wraps filming—here’s what we now so far about the special
They’re no longer on a break! The ’90s US sitcom Friends had just wrapped filming its long-awaited reunion special, the show’s official social accounts confirmed.
In a post on Sunday, April 11, the Friends official Instagram account shared a photo from the setting Friends reunion with the caption: “That’s a wrap! Could we BE any more excited?”
The special—which, at least based on the Instagram photo, will be titled Friends: The Reunion—will be available on HBO’s online streaming service HBO Max, which also streams all the episodes of the iconic sitcom in the US. (Friends is still available via streaming via Netflix Philippines in the Philippines)
The release date of the Friends reunion show is yet to be released.
The reunion was originally set to be filmed in March 2020, but was pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic. Variety last year reports that the show’s six stars—Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and Matthew Perry—will be getting $2.5 million each for appearing in the reunion. The same report said that the special will be unscripted—which means the cast will be appearing as themselves, not as their iconic Friends characters.
This confirmation that the filming of the special has wrapped aligns with earlier reports and interviews with the cast about the reunion. Earlier this month, David Schwimmer, who played Ross in the show, told TV host Graham Norton that he was leaving for Los Angeles to film the Friends reunion.
“I’m going to Los Angeles. We’re going to be shooting the Friends reunion next week,” Schwimmer said. “I’m hopping on a plane this afternoon, this evening. And yeah, gonna see everyone next week for the first time in many years.”
Schwimmer also said that the reunion, indeed, will not be scripted. “I’ll be myself. I’ll be David. There’s nothing is scripted, we’re not in character. We’re all ourselves, the real people, although there is one section of it that I don’t want to give away, but we all read something.”
Nonetheless, the Friends reunion should be exciting. In an interview last year, Cox revealed that the cast of Friends only met up twice since the show ended in 2004. "When we get together, which is never, it only just happened, this doesn't happen very often, like twice since we ended the show. It's just the most fun, we laugh so hard," she said.
Friends, which ran from 1995 to 2004, is considered to be one of the most popular and successful television shows of all time.