NBC Exec: ‘The Office’ and ‘West Wing’ Reboots Could Happen

NBC might be sitting on the success of This Is Us and the Will & Grace reboot, but the network is looking at two classics to revive very soon.

NBC Chairman Bob Greenblatt discussed the possibility of reviving hit shows The Office and West Wing when asked about the recent success of ABC’s Roseanne reboot, and the appetite of what he calls the “reboot genre.”

However, The Hollywood Reporter writes, there are some shows he says the network will never touch.

Friends, for example, he says will never be rebooted. Seinfeld is also guaranteed to never be rebooted. Greenblatt was also asked specifically if he’d revive Cheers, but he suggested it may be beyond the point of return.

“I’d love to have the Cheers reboot if it were 20 years ago,” Greenblatt said.

The Office, Greenblatt notes, is a possibility, though it would likely happen without the full original cast. The West Wing also seems to have odds of returning but Greenblatt noted that creator Aaron Sorkin would get behind a reboot “if he weren’t busy doing 10 other extraordinary things.”

The biggest challenge when it comes to staging television revivals, other than avoiding over saturation, is getting deals for the actors, who are now major stars.

“The actors want a lot more money than we’re willing to pay them,” he said.

Rumors of a reboot for The Office have been swirling since early 2018, with John Krasinski even pitching his own idea for a television special.

“I would love to do that,” Krasinski told The Wrap at SXSW. “I think it would sort of be a ‘Where Are They Now?’ kind of thing. That would be really fun… I would totally be down [for it] if everyone else is too.”

Krasinski also said he was surprised he had not been called by anyone at NBC about doing the revival, even after he went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to say he was all for it.

“I still have yet to get a call,” he said. “I am surprised that after Ellen and all that — I haven’t gotten a call, so I haven’t heard anything about it, other than on the Internet — the Internet is making the show. Twitter is shooting The Office reboot. I don’t know if any of us are going to be a part of it!”

The original Office earned a Golden Globe for Steve Carell in 2006. However, Carell infamously never won an Emmy and the series only one Outstanding Comedy Series once in 2006.

The West Wing ran from 1999 to 2006 and won three Golden Globes, as well as 26 Emmy Awards, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series.