According to the sources the current production shutdown for FRIENDS Reunion due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that the production dates for the HBO Max special have yet to be decided.
In February HBO Max announced the meeting. The taping will bring together the whole core cast of the beloved sitcom FRIENDS — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc — on the original soundstage of the comedy, Stage 24, on the Warner Bros. Burbank Studio Lot, California.
WarnerMedia Entertainment and Robert Greenblatt, chairman of Direct-to-Consumer announced in May that the meeting was being pushed back.
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“At first we thought, shows will be delayed for a month or two at the most, and now it seems like it’s going to be far longer than that,” Greenblatt told Variety. “We’re holding out for being able to get this special done hopefully by the end of the summer if the stars align and hopefully we can get back into production.”
Greenblatt said that according to the plan they were still to tape before a live studio audience, just as it did during the 10-season run of the sitcom.
“We do think there’s a value to having a big, raucous live audience to experience these six great friends coming back together,” he added. “And we didn’t want to just suddenly do it on a web call with, you know, six squares and people shooting from their kitchens and bedrooms.”
Robert Greenblatt went on saying, “At the moment, we’re trying to look to the future and get this thing done in a more conventional way, and I think it’s worth waiting for.”
“We would have loved to have had it on [HBO Max on] Day One, but at the same time, if we can get it launched in the fall, I think it’ll be something that we can have the audience really looking forward to as well, he concluded”
Meanwhile, all the 236 episodes of the series are available on HBO Max.