It’s official: The cast of Friends is reuniting for a one-off unscripted special on HBO Max. Consider it “The One Where They Get Back Together”.
Rumors of a reunion special started simmering in November, but The Hollywood Reporter has now confirmed that the core cast of the beloved series — that’s Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer — is set to return for the limited special. The TV show’s creators, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, are also expected to participate.
The reunion special is set to be filmed in Burbank on Stage 24 of the Warner Bros. Studio lot. If the location sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same place where the entirety of Friends was shot during its 10-season run from 1994 through 2004.
The reconvening of all six principal cast members didn’t come cheaply, as each actor stands to earn “more than double their former per-episode fee for the reunion and be paid between $2.5 million and $3 million for the special,” per The Hollywood Reporter. If you’ll recall, amidst their original on-air run, the cast famously renegotiated their contracts to receive then-historic salaries ($1 million per episode).
“Guess you could call this the one where they all got back together — we are reuniting with David, Jennifer, Courteney, Matt, Lisa, and Matthew for an HBO Max special that will be programmed alongside the entire Friends library,” Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max and president, TBS, TNT and truTV, noted in a statement. “I became aware of Friends when it was in the very early stages of development and then had the opportunity to work on the series many years later and have delighted in seeing it catch on with viewers generation after generation. It taps into an era when friends — and audiences — gathered together in real time and we think this reunion special will capture that spirit, uniting original and new fans.”
The Friends reunion special will debut on HBO Max when the streaming platform officially launches sometime in May. All 236 past episodes of Friends will also be available on HBO Max, following the series’ departure from Netflix late last year.
Below, find the official Friends reunion announcement that was posted by all six cast members.
unscripted? So are they all just hanging out and talking about the show?
Jon Stewart interviewing stand up friends, especially Louis CK & Denis Leary.
SNL alumni riffing together and telling stories.
Realization: Norm McDonald is a great talk show guest. No one does No Fucks Given better; his material isn't necessarily great but no on has better delivery or pausing.
wease wrote:That clip of Norm on Conan with Courtney Thorne-Smith is one of the funniest things ever.
I went down the Norm YouTube rabbit hole a few months back and remember that appearance. Hilarious.
I do that every few months. That's appearance has got to be Top 3. If not Number One. He's just on fire the whole time and then that very last crack is sheer perfection.
Let me tell you, Homer Simpson is cock of nothing!
- C. Montgomery Burns
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
tragabigzanda wrote:The number of shows I feel are must-see doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger lately. Have we peaked already?
Absolutely not. We're just too spread out and we all consume on different schedules. The term "must-see" has shifted. And the lack of weekly event TV and a place to discuss it with people who are actually watching it in real time is probably the biggest reason you're feeling what you're feeling.
For example, Devs is absolutely "must-see". But it's FX on Hulu (and I'll be honest, I don't know if that means it's on both or just on Hulu; I watched on Hulu and don't have FX). Because not everyone has either of those options and because it aired mostly during a time when people couldn't get together to talk about it, it fell through the cracks. People aren't talking about it as must-see. Because a lot of people didn't see it.
The quality is still there and I would argue growing.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
