Fans of the Friends series have been waiting for months for a sign confirming rumors of a return to the screens of the famous band of New York friends: the actors themselves came on social media on Friday.
"It will be done"
"It's happening ..." published together on their respective Instagram accounts, with a collective photo of the great era, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. "Fans of Friends, it's official!" Confirmed at the same time in a press release the HBO Max streaming platform, which will offer a special episode of the cult series on the occasion of its launch in May.
See this post on Instagram
It's happening ... @hbomax @jenniferaniston @lisakudrow @mleblanc @ mattyperry4 @_schwim_
A publication shared by Courteney Cox (@courteneycoxofficial) on Feb. 21. 2020 at 2:00 am PST
"After 15 years, nine months and countless requests from fans across the planet (...) the cast of Friends will be reformed exclusively" for the new platform, owned by WarnerMedia (AT&T group). For $ 425 million over five years, the latter stole the rights to the 236 episodes of "Friends" (1994-2004) to make it one of its premium products, the series having been in 2018 the most watched on Netflix, according to Nielsen.
$ 2.5 million per actor
The reunion, fifteen years later, between Ross, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey and Rachel, we will plunge "into a time when friends - and viewers - gathered in real time and we think that this special episode will revive this spirit "said HBO Max official Kevin Reilly in the release.
According to the specialized site Variety , which cites sources close to the file, each actor will receive at least 2.5 million dollars for his participation in this episode alone. It will be shot, HBO Max said, in the series' original Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, near Hollywood.