friends-reunion-hbo-max-special-confirmed

This is the best news to lift us out of our midweek slump: A Friends reunion special on HBO Max is confirmed according to reports by The Hollywood Reporter, and we can’t believe it. For anyone who rushed home to catch an episode after work, school, or caught the reruns growing up—this latest development is for you. Nothing like a Friends 25th anniversary miracle.

It’s only been a few weeks since Jennifer Aniston teased the possibility of a Friends reunion on the Ellen DeGeneres Show last month, and I guess her cryptic comments weren’t so cryptic after all. “Listen, we would love for there to be something, but we don’t know what that something is,” Aniston said to DeGeneres. “So, we’re just trying. We’re working on something.” Fans started freaking out, naturally, and we’ve been waiting for an official update since. Now, we know that Aniston’s “something” is coming to HBO Max.

That said, HBO hasn’t released any details about an air date or publicly commented on the plans for a Friends shoot. According to Hollywood Reporter, however, the six stars of the beloved ’90s sitcom—which includes Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer—along with series creators David Crane and Martha Kauffman, are all slated to be working on the new project. And as far as the project itself goes, Hollywood Reporter claims that it will look like a brand new episode or movie altogether. However, there’s one additional, unexpected caveat: HBO is considering an “unscripted” reunion special. That’s…interesting to say the least.

Fans across Twitter and Instagram are unsure how to feel about this unscripted aspect. One Twitter user, Mrs. Y, writes: “What. Is. A. None-scripted. Special????” Whereas user Wilson Frontier thinks, “A talk show type special is nice. I do agree a reboot would not work. But a handful of sketches, [where] they just suspend disbelief and play the roles again would be awesome.”

Regardless of how we’re all reacting to this news, Hollywood Reporter‘s piece does caution us to not get our hopes up too quickly. A deal is “far from done,” says their source, and there is always the chance that talks might fall through or that the six actors’ schedules might not line up for a project like this. But hey, as the theme song goes: They’ll be there for you! So we’ll take things as confirmed and keep our fingers crossed, for now.