'Friends' Reunion Has Fans Buzzing After HBO Max Premiere Announced for This Month

Daniel S. Levine

05/13/2021 05:47 pm EDT

The long-awaited Friends reunion finally has a premiere date on HBO Max, coinciding with the streaming platform's one-year anniversary. The news was met with overwhelming excitement from fans who have been itching to see the special. Friends: The Reunion was intended to be available when HBO Max launched, but the project was delayed throughout 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The cast's reunion at Stage 24 on the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank will be released on HBO Max on Thursday, May 27.

HBO Max is home to the original Friends series, which ran from 1994 to 2004. The streaming platform costs $14.99 per month and includes all HBO content, plus hundreds of movies and TV shows that are part of the WarnerMedia library. It is available on most streaming devices, including Amazon Fire TV, AndroidTV, iPad, AppleTV, Google Chromecast, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Xbox One, and PS5.

Friends: The Reunion is not a new episode of the show. Instead, it features cast members Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer reminiscing about their time on the classic show. A group of non-Friends stars also participated in the special to share their memories of the show, including some unexpected celebrities like Justin Bieber, Cara Delevingne, Lady Gaga, David Beckham, BTS, James Corden, Kit Hartington, Mindy Kaling, Cindy Crawford, and Malala Yousafzai. Tom Selleck, Reese Witherspoon, Thomas Lennon, James Michael Tyler, Larry Hankin, Christina Pickles, and Elliot Gould also participated.

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The special was directed by Ben Winston and executive produced by Friends executive producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman, and David Crane. The cast members are also executive producers on the project. HBO Max also released a brief teaser, which includes no footage from the special. Instead, it just shows slow-motion footage of the cast from behind, as they walk on the Warner lot. A slow version of "I'll Be There For You" plays before the slogan "The One Where They Get Back Together" appears.

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The premiere date news came just a few days after Cox gushed about the filming during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She called it an "unbelievable" and "so emotional" experience. "It's an unscripted reunion, but we got to be on Stage 24 for the first time, all of us in, like, I forgot how many years. Fifteen years? Seventeen years," Cox, who played Monica Geller, said.

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Cox also admitted to having the "worst memory," nothing that she forgot many of the things that came up during the reunion. She did recall how the famous main title sequence was shot, in which the cast jumped into a fountain.

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"I don't know somebody thought that would be really fun, and let me tell you what happens, it's not fun to be dancing in a fountain for hours and hours," Cox said. "I remember Matthew Perry saying at one point, and we didn't know each other that well at that point, but I remember – and this was so Matthew – but he was like, 'Can't remember a time that I wasn't in this fountain.'"

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"HBO Max's Friends reunion premieres May 27 and the list of celebrities featured is truly the most random collection of names since Renee Zellweger's Oscar acceptance speech," one Twitter user wrote. "I swear to my god the FRIENDS REUNION will save us all this year," another added.

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Many noted the parallels between one of the last photos of the cast in 2004 and the teaser released this week. "They came back in the same exact way they left I'm crying at the parallels bye," one fan wrote.

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