Zach Braff will reprise his role as John “J.D.” Dorian on the forthcoming reboot of Scrubs, Deadline on Wednesday afternoon via an anonymous source. The news comes five months after the series’ original creator Bill Lawrence announced he would be spearheading — though not writing or showrunning — a continuation of the long-running medical sitcom through ABC last December.
While representatives declined to comment on the sources’ report to Deadline, Dorian was the main character of the original series, which made the prospect of a follow-up series without Braff’s involvement dubious. The anonymous source claims to Deadline that a deal was struck “after months of touch-and-go negotiations” due to disagreements over salary and Braff’s preference to film in Los Angeles (in line with the original Scrubs) as opposed to the studio’s chosen location of Vancouver.
This is not the only obstacle the Scrubs reboot has surmounted during pre-production. Lawrence signed a five-year overall deal with Warner Bros. in 2022 after his success showrunning sports comedy-drama Ted Lasso via Variety. It took months of arbitration between studio representatives to decide that Lawrence will oversee the new Scrubs series while also continuing his work on various shows for Warner Bros. TV such as Shrinking and an untitled upcoming Steve Carell comedy.
Last August, Braff told Entertainment Tonight that he was optimistic about the reboot’s chances despite the hurdles, remarking that once negotiations were finished, “the people will get what they want” and that “it would be so much fun” to reprise his role.
Lawrence once pitched the Scrubs reboot to Deadline as “a combo” between new and returning storylines. “There’s no cliché ‘rich doctors playing golf’ — that’s not what it is anymore. So I think that, no matter what it is, it would be a giant mistake not to do a combo of those two things.”
Deadline posits that ABC parent company 20th Television is now expected to seek out other members of the core Scrubs cast to procure their return. While the publication did not disclose where the sequel series would are, the original series is available now in its entirety on Hulu.