‘Rick and Morty’ Creator Confirms Script for ‘Community’ Movie Is Officially Underway

When he isn’t busy working on his hit animated series Rick and Morty, creator Dan Harmon is busy finally bringing the long-awaited Community movie to life. Six years after the beloved sitcom ended following six seasons and more than 100 episodes, Harmon confirmed on Friday that he has officially started working on the script for the feature-length reunion film.

Speaking on Vulture’s Good One podcast, Harmon said that he “started writing to keep my parents from hitting me, and I now only write to feel valid.” The “upside” to that, he said, is that he is “at least once a week, thinking about” the Community movie. According to Harmon, “the gears are turning. There is, like… a thing is happening. Logistically, the locks are coming away.” Harmon added that “the only problems are becoming the creative ones, which is great because I love those problems. I love having these conversations, and they’re being had.”

Originally premiering in 2009, Community centered around a group of misfits at Greendale Community College all looking to define themselves in a world that seems to be stacked against them. Starring Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Ken Jeong, and Chevy Chase, the series quickly became one of the standout sitcoms of the last decade and earned itself a dedicated cult following. After the series ended in 2015, the talk immediately shifted to a potential movie that would bring the cast together. Speaking to PopCulture in September 2020, Brown said “100% we’re going to do it… As soon as Dan writes it or one of the other great writers writes it, and we all can find a time on this calendar — where everybody can set aside a month to do it — 100% we would do it.”

However, bringing the movie to life isn’t necessarily an easy task. During his Good One appearance, Harmon admitted that he was struggling with “the biggest philosophical question: Are you supposed to service a mythical new viewer?”

“The obvious, dogmatic, practical, off-the-street answer is like, ‘No, you don’t. It’s fan service. Why would there be a Community movie? Who do you think is going to walk in off the street and buy popcorn and sit and watch a Community movie like that? They deserve to be punished. Why are they doing that?’” he said. “Saying that that person doesn’t exist is a lot different from asking yourself structurally if you’re supposed to design the movie for them because there’s a new viewer inside of all of us.”

At this time, further details about the planned Community movie are not available. As fans await further updates, they can catch up on all 110 episodes of Community on Netflix, where it was made available for streaming last year.