While HBO’s comedy series Bored to Death was cancelled after three seasons back in 2011, and a possible movie has been in development since 2013, not much progress has been reported so far. However, speaking on a panel at the Vulture Festival in Los Angeles on Sunday, the show’s creator Jonathan Ames said, “I did write two versions.”

The show followed three quirky male friends played by Zach Galifianakis, Ted Danson and Jason Schwartzman, with the latter’s character named after and loosely based on Ames himself.

Fans should not get too excited about a film yet though, since Ames also said of his drafts, “Maybe they didn’t quite work, and then I just sort of stopped. Now a lot of time has passed, but we still talk about it, we have some ideas.” Part of the reason for Ames’ reticence to push forward with the project seems to be dealing with the constraints of the film format. “The main thing is, when you have those movies sometimes they don’t work so well. A movie is 90 minutes,” he said, adding that in TV, “you could really breathe with the characters, and movies are a different thing.”

Above all, it’s clear Ames is set on preserving the integrity of the show. “I would hate for it to somehow take something away,” he said, “but it would be so much fun to work together again.”

Danson, also on the panel, said that in order to speed things up and further pique HBO’s interest, they should put it out there that Netflix are interested. Ames joked, “Can someone just Tweet that statement?”

Clearly, the Bored to Death cast were delighted to be reunited, and the discussion was full of laughs and fond reminiscences. As Ames said of his panel-mates Danson, Schwartzman and Galifianakis, “Seeing the three of them right now, I’m like, ‘Wow what a cast!’ We were incredibly lucky.”

Schwartzman said that while he remembered always being exhausted from giving the show his all, he was also uplifted by the experience. “I was all invigorated and excited,” he said, “because of the work and just hanging out as people, I feel like so many of these incredible conversations and laughs I’ve had happened during those days.”

While in typical fashion, Galifianakis raised laughs from the audience when he said, “These guys are the nicest human beings. The problem is you have to f**king be nice too.”