The Office is getting another remake, this time in Australia. According to Comicbook, the new series is officially set to premiere on October 18 on Prime Video.
This version of The Office stars comedian Felicity Ward (Wakefield, Time Bandits) as Hannah Howard, managing director of the Flinley Craddick packaging company. When Hannah gets word that the head office is shutting down her branch of the company and converting its employees to remote work, she strikes a deal that she might not be able to fulfill to keep her branch open and “work family” together. The rest of her staff are forced to go along with her antics in an attempt to meet her seemingly impossible goals.
Alongside Ward, the Australian version of the show will feature a cast comprised of Edith Poor (Juniper, Daniel), Steen Raskopoulos (Top Coppers, Whose Line Is It Anyway? Australia), Shari Sebbens (The Sapphires, Moogai), Jonny Brugh (What We Do in the Shadows, Thor: Love and Thunder), Susan Ling Young (Hungry Ghosts, 24 Hours to Live), Raj Labade (Back of the Net, Appetite), Zoe Terakes (Talk to Me, Ironheart) and Pallavi Sharda (Wedding Season, Lion).
This is not the first time The Office has been remade for a new audience. The popular U.S. version of the show, which centered around the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the Dunder Mifflin paper company, was remake of the U.K. series created by Ricky Gervais (After Life, The Ricky Gervais Show) and Stephen Merchant (The Outlaws, Logan). Following its success, dozens of other countries tried their hand at making their own version of the mockumentary-style sitcom, to varying degrees of success. None were as popular as the U.S. series, which made actors like Steve Carell (Despicable Me, The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Rainn Wilson (The Meg, The Rocker) and John Krasinski (A Quiet Place, Jack Ryan) household names. The show aired on NBC from 2005 to 2013, facing near cancellation at its start and becoming one of the channel’s most successful series by its end.
As for Ward’s Australian take on the series, audiences will have to wait until October to determine how it compares to its predecessors.