‘The Office’ Creator Greg Daniels Reportedly Wants to Reboot Series

Greg Daniels, who developed the U.S. version of The Office, is reportedly interested in rebooting the series. Former NBC Entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt said Daniels approached him about the idea when Greenblatt was still at the company and even has an idea for it. In October, Daniels himself said he was hesitant to bringing it back out of fear of disappointing fans.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Greenblatt, who now oversees HBO Max, was asked if rebooting library properties was an interest of his as well.

“Only when the company owns the underlying show,” Greenblatt explained. “In that case, it does. But, look, I was talking to [series creator] Greg Daniels four years ago about rebooting The Office, way before this. He wants to do it and actually has an idea for it.”

Greenblatt did not explain further what ideas Daniels wanted to explore.

When Entertainment Weekly asked Daniels himself about it in October, he admitted there was some talk about bringing The Office back around the time the Will & Grace revival was coming together. However, an Office revival was impossible at that time, since the cast was so busy with other projects.

“It was such a perfect thing that I would hesitate to open it up,” Daniels said of The Office. “We got the chance to end it the way we wanted to end it. It wasn’t like we were interrupted in the middle of a run or something. So in a sense it’s completely an artistic whole. But, that said, I don’t know, the cast every now and then talks about getting back together in some form, but I don’t see it being a reboot like the way Will & Grace was rebooted.”

Daniels’ biggest concern about a revival “would be disappointing the fans,” he said. “People will watch the entire series and then roll right into watching it again, and to me that means we ended it properly.”

Thanks to the show’s availability on Netflix, The Office has remained ubiquitous in popular culture. Since NBCUniversal is preparing to launch its Peacock streaming service in 2020, there has been increased talk of an Office revival. However, Peacock will not get to include The Office until the Netflix streaming deal ends at the end of 2020.

On Monday, The Ellen DeGeneres Show guest host Ellie Kemper invited her Office co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey stop by and asked them about reviving the show.

“I would not do an Office reboot, but I would love to do a reunion special episode,” Fischer said. “I’d like to get us all together again.”

“I would do anything they called me to do,” Kinsely added. “So if you want to call me, I’m around.”

The Office originally aired on NBC from 2005 to 2013 and is an adaptation of the U.K. series created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. While the original U.K. show only had 12 episodes and three specials, Daniels’ show ran 201 episodes.

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