‘The Office’: Peacock Brass Exploring “Creative Ideas” For Series’ Launch, Including Possible Reunion; No Reboot Talk

Nellie Andreeva
·3 min read

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Peacock’s marquee library offering, The Office, is coming to the platform in January 2021. It is expected to make a splash, with the streamer planning a campaign around the event. An Office reboot is not part of the plans.

“Because it does not launch until January, we have not talked specifically about The Office reboots for Peacock; we’ve talked about things we can do to support The Office once it gets to our service but a reboot has not come up specifically for Peacock,” Bill McGoldrick, President of Original Content, NBCUniversal Entertainment Networks and Direct-to-Consumer, told Deadline during an interview tied to Peacock’s July 15 launch.

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NBCU last year acquired streaming rights to NBC’s The Office for $500+ million, taking it away from Netflix where the series starring Steve Carell has flourished. Another hugely popular TV comedy that moved away Netflix with a blockbuster deal, Friends, was slated to launch on HBO Max with a big reunion special, whose taping was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Is Peacock considering a similar Office reunion or a special in the vein of what Parks & Recreation and 30 Rock recently did for NBC?

“Lots of those ideas have been bandied about with people internally and with Greg Daniels and people associated with the show,” McGoldrick said. “As you can imagine, there are lots of creative ideas, we haven’t landed at any one right now.”

A possible Office reboot with the U.S. version’s developer/executive producer Daniels had been rumored for years, long before Peacock was announced.

“It is my hope and goal that we do an Office reboot,” NBCU’s Bonnie Hammer, then-Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises, told Deadline the day Peacock’s name was revealed last September. (She now oversees NBCU’s production entities, including Office producer Universal TV.) “The Office comes back to us in January 2021. It is my hope that we can figure what that great reboot would be,” Hammer said back then, adding, “We are having conversations.”

Peacock’s initial slate of original series includes reboots of three NBCU series, Battlestar Galactica, Saved By the Bell and Punky Brewster.

Carell, who left The Office at the end of his seven-year contract, had stated repeatedly that he is not in favor of revisiting the Emmy-winning comedy series, and in 2018 said that his character Michael Scott’s boorish shenanigans at Dunder-Mifflin might not play so well in today’s climate of heightened awareness of offensive behavior.

Carell and Daniels are currently working on an Office-esque Netflix comedy series, Space Force.

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