Last week, Warner Bros. celebrated its 100th year anniversary since its founding. As part of their celebration, they had made a monumental effort to rebrand themselves and to update all of their shows and platforms. One of these was to retitle their streaming service named HBO Max to just Max to also encompass their other property, Discovery+. Under that service, they will also create new shows and expand other franchises under their belt. In this case, they had employed Chuck Lorre (Two and a Half Men, The Kominsky Method) to expand the lore and universe of The Big Bang Theory even more. He will create another spinoff to the massively popular comedy sitcom for Max.
According to HBO, Entertainment Weekly, Deadline, and Variety, the award-winning director, writer, and producer, Chuck Lorre, is working with Max to create and develop another spinoff series in The Big Bang Universe. Many consider Lorre as the “King of Sitcoms” since he has worked on many critically acclaimed shows such as Two and a Half Men, Young Sheldon, The Kominsky Method, Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, and many more.
During the Warner. Bros Discovery presentation this Wednesday, they included in its release a collaboration of this yet untitled spinoff with Chuck Lorre Productions. This isn’t the first time Lorre worked on a spinoff for The Big Bang Theory either as he also worked on and still produces Young Sheldon. Fans know too well that in that show, nine-year-old Sheldon Cooper manages to balance his unique intellectual aptitude and learns how to socialize with other people. This is a funny precursor to what will be seen in The Big Bang Theory, via. Variety.
As of now, that is all of the information that has been put out there for this new spinoff. It is hypothesized that this will be an hour-long series which would feature a totally new cast, via. Variety. Many fans can infer that some original stars of The Big Bang Theory would make guest appearances on this new show.
This would be the second time Lorre would be working with Max under his company since developing How to be a Bookie. In that series, it centers around a veteran bookie who struggles to survive sports gambling, increasingly unstable clients, family, co-workers and a lifestyle that sees him going all over the place in Los Angeles. It currently stars Sebastian Maniscalco (The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Green Book), Omar J. Dorsey (Queen Sugar, The Blind Side), Andrea Anders (Ted Lasso, Cruel Summer), Vanessa Ferlito (Grind House, NCIS: New Orleans) and Jorge Garcia (Los, Hawaii Five-0). Lorre, Maniscalco and Nick Bakay (Mom, The King of Queens) serve as executive producers for that series, via. Variety.
The Big Bang Theory aired on CBS for twelve seasons from 2007 to 2019. It became a classic and it brought around 18 million viewers for its series finale, via. Variety. From that same article, they say that Young Sheldon premiered in 2017 and is still on the air currently on its sixth season. It was also announced that it’s good to go with seventh season that was greenlit. It is currently the most-watched sitcom on the air according to Variety.
Deadline says how The Big Bang Theory ran as the longest-running multi-camera series in TV history with 279 episodes across twelve seasons. They go on to mention that it won ten Emmys and received 55 nominations during its twelve-year run. It also won a Critics Choice TV Award for Outstanding Comedy Series as well as The Humanitas Prize.
From that same article, The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation created The Big Bang Theory Scholarship Endowment in 2015 at UCLA. This will support undergraduate students who are pursuing in the STEM field who are in need of financial aid. Also in 2019, The Big Bang Theory Graduate School Fund was created at UCLA to provide four-year scholarships for graduate students within the University of California system, via. Deadline.
When speaking with Entertainment Weekly last year, the co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, Bill Prady (Platypus Man, Dharma and Greg), reminisced on the legacy of the series during its 15-year anniversary: “Would I like to stand on a stage someplace and watch those characters again? Yes, absolutely…Can I imagine a way to do it? I can’t. But, personally, would l like to go to Stage 25 and see that set and those costumes and those people? Yeah, I get choked up just thinking about it. But I don’t know how we’d do that.”
From that same article, he adds how difficult it would be to reintroduce that universe after a satisfying ending; this is despite pushes from fans for one more season, “It’s hard to imagine what you would see after the finale because I found the finale was just one of the most beautiful and satisfying episodes. The closure it brought was astonishing. It’s hard to imagine reopening the story.”
Lorre adds to this when talking with Entertainment Weekly, “I don’t think we left anything undone. That was as close to a perfect finale as we could have ever dreamt of doing.”
As of now, this universe would be worth exploring for many wanting more. More would be reported on as more announcements come out. In the meantime, you can watch all twelve seasons of The Big Bang Theory as well as the first five seasons of Young Sheldon on Max.