Often viewed as “Schrodinger’s film”, the Community (2009) movie is a long-rumored follow-up project to complete the story of the underdog sitcom sensation from Dan Harmon. Depending on who you ask or even when you ask them, the film is still supposedly happening soon. While the cast of the series is all on board to make the project, it has languished in development hell (mostly on the writers’ front) since the show came to an end in 2015. Joel McHale, one of the series stars, seems to remain hopeful that the project could still happen.
In a recent guest spot on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, McHale provided a brief and relatively vague update as to the status of the Community movie where he seemed optimistic that the project will still happen while trying to keep himself grounded with the reality that it may not. McHale said:
“I used to just lie about it. People would be like, ‘Is the movie going to happen?’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, sure’. So I think things are in place, People are like, ‘We’re game.’ We’ll have the money. So I think, like, uhh… a pizza. There is cheese being made. Someone’s got flour. There is water over here. This guy has an oven. And it could all come together. Or never come together.”
Often referred to as “the little show that could”, Dan Harmon’s Community ran for six seasons from 2009 through 2015. During its run, the series was constantly “on the bubble,” meaning that it was never sure if it would end up renewed for another season the following year. The show aired on NBC for the first five seasons of its run before it was cancelled and rescued by Yahoo, where it would air its sixth and final season as the flagship series of the short-lived Yahoo Screen streaming application.
A movie that would bring the series full closure and wrap up all of the loose ends of the story has been rumored for years, starting as early as the show’s second season which introduced the meta mantra “Six Seasons And A Movie” that the fanbase quickly latched on to. By the time the show managed to get to the end of its sixth and final season, this rally to finish the story changed simply to “#AndAMovie”.
Series creator Dan Harmon recently said that he was actively working on the script right now, so hopefully, it is no longer a matter of “if” and more of a question of “when.” The show has already been off the air for six years. Do we really want a Community Movie that sees our favorite characters a decade older?
Community starred Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Danny Pudi, Gillian Jacobs, Ken Jeong, Jim Rash, Donald Glover, Yvette Nicole Brown, Chevy Chase, John Oliver, Keith David, Paget Brewster, and Jonathan Banks. You can catch the complete series streaming now on various platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.
Are you hopeful for the Community movie? Or should we just let it go at this point? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and be sure to stick around Geek Anything for more Community updates!