NBC is currently working on The Office reboot. Series star Steve Carell will not be involved in this new installment.
The reboot would continue the misadventures of the employees at the Dunder-Mifflin paper company set in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Even though no other details have been announced about the comedy show’s return, NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt revealed last summer that an Office revival was on the wish list.
“We often talk about The Office; I’ve talked to Greg four times over the past few years. It’s always, ‘Maybe someday but not now,'” Greenblatt stated during the TCA press tour. “There is certainly an open invitation, but we don’t have anything happening right now. If he wants to do it, I would do it.”
Executive produced by Greg Daniels, The Office was based on the British show of the same name. The original NBC series ran from 2005-2013. The series starred Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Craig Robinson, Mindy Kaling, and B.J. Novak among others. The Office received a total of 42 Emmy nominations during its run and won five Emmy Awards.
Fischer, who starred as the receptionist Pam Beesley or Pam Halpert, expressed some doubt about the series return.
“I don’t think it’ll ever happen,” she said. “I would do it if there was some circumstance where everybody got back together, and could be brought back together in some amazing way, I would say yes. But I’m not sure it’s realistic. The characters, they had arcs. They had growth. Jim and Pam left Dunder-Mifflin. Michael left Dunder-Mifflin. And it would be hard to manufacture why all the people were working back together. And I’m not sure the show works if we’re all in different locations. I immediately start thinking, how did Jim and Pam get back from Austin? And Michael’s living with Holly now. It would almost have to be a scenario where it’s ‘the lost tapes of “The Office,”‘ where you somehow go back in time and there’s all of these lost stories where we weirdly look 5 years older.”
Despite some uncertainty, this would not be NBC’s first time in the revival business. The network successfully relaunched Will & Grace this fall. The new season of its return was one of NBC’s highest-rated shows of the season so far and was renewed for another season.