Community star Joel McHale has provided fans yet another update on the highly anticipated film adaptation of the cult series.
More than two years have passed since US streaming service Peacock announced, in September 2022, that the sitcom’s promise of “six seasons and a movie” was definitely going to be fulfilled.
The Emmy-winning series ran for five seasons from 2009 to 2014 on NBC and for the final sixth season on Yahoo! Screen in 2015.
Series creator Dan Harmon is overseeing the film, and a majority of the cast are returning.
In a podcast appearance, McHale confirmed that a “script was written” for the film, but shooting was delayed by scheduling conflicts.
“So that is a, that’s when everyone’s like, is that going to happen? I was like, well, we got the money, which is one of the harder things to do. Yeah. And everyone’s in, so that is the other,” McHale told host Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the podcast Dinner’s On Me.
“It’s really coming down to schedules and a script was written. So all that is real. And I know that we have been talking about it for literally years, but it’s, it will happen and there’s just, you know, it’s just getting those schedules together.”
As to what fans could expect, McHale said he had read the script and would offer only one spoiler. “I am not going to tell you anything about it. I’ll just say, everybody dies.”
In March last year, McHale, who played the playboy protagonist Jeff Winger in Community and guest starred in another hit series, The Bear, said that he would be “shocked” if the film didn’t start shooting in 2024. However, in July he said his lack of availability meant the film still hadn’t begun shooting.
He had previously confirmed that Donald Glover would be returning as Troy for the film. “The fact that we even got Donald to do it,” he said, “that was the big piece.”
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He also said that Yvette Nicole Brown, who played Shirley Bennett, would be returning. “I think everyone’s coming back. So far, we’re pretty good.”
Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Jim Rash, and Ken Jeong were also confirmed to return.
Chevy Chase, who played millionaire Pierce Hawthorne, was not likely to return. He previously suggested that it might not be “legal for him to come back”.
Chase’s time on the show was riddled with behind-the-scenes controversy. The actor, 80, is reported to have left during the fourth season after using a racist slur on set.
Harmon told The New Yorker in 2018 that Chase would “make racial cracks between takes” to try and disrupt Glover’s scenes.
“Chevy was the first to realise how immensely gifted Donald was and the way he expressed his jealousy was to try to throw Donald off,” Harmon told The New Yorker in 2018.
“I remember apologising to Donald after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-PC verbiage and Donald said, ‘I don’t even worry about it.’”
In 2012, a source told The Hollywood Reporter that Chase had “apologised immediately” after he used the N-word on set. The slur was not aimed at Glover or his Black co-star Yvette Nicole Brown, but used when Chase questioned dialogue in a scene with their characters, said the source.
In a subsequent interview on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, Chase suggested that his departure was on his own terms.
“I honestly felt the show wasn’t funny enough for me, ultimately,” he said.
“I felt a little bit constrained. Everybody had their bits, and I thought they were all good. It just wasn’t hard-hitting enough for me.”