Community's Movie Delays Filming Due to Writers' Strike

Community alum Joel McHale confirms filming on the revival movie has been delayed due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.

Community alum Joel McHale has confirmed that the long-awaited revival film has been put on hold amid the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.

The Community movie was originally set to begin filming this month. However, McHale explained to TVLine that production has been delayed, with the project becoming one of many to be temporarily shut down as result of the writers' strike that began last month. "That was a bummer, because we were getting very close," McHale said. "But at the same time, I'm a thousand billion percent behind the writers. The writers need to be paid." Despite the delay, McHale assures that the Community movie is "still going to happen."

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The strike began on May 2 after contract negotiations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down. The WGA is seeking to secure its writers increased pay and better residuals from streaming content. The guild is also pushing for limits to be place on the use of artificial intelligence in the writing process. This labor dispute is the first of its kind since the WGA strike of 2007-2008, which lasted for approximately three months.

Among fans of the cult-favorite, genre-bending sitcom Community, the phrase #SixSeasonsAndAMovie has long been both a running joke and a prophecy. The series originally aired on NBC for five seasons from 2009 to 2014. After NBC canceled Community, the now-defunct streaming service Yahoo! Screen picked the show up for a sixth and final season, which aired in 2015. Then, in September 2022, the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service Peacock officially green-lit a Community revival film, with much of the original cast attached to return.

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At the time, it was confirmed that McHale would be reprising his role as Jeff Winger opposite Danny Pudi as Abed Nadir, Alison Brie as Annie Edison, Gillian Jacobs as Britta Perry, Jim Rash as Dean Craig Pelton and Ken Jeong as Ben Chang. Notably absent from the film's initial cast list were Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown, who played Troy Barnes and Shirley Bennett, respectively, in the original television series. That said, Community creator Dan Harmon soon clarified that Glover and Brown would likely be back as well, hinting that their deals simply hadn't been finalized yet.

Early this past April, Glover effectively confirmed that he would indeed be reprising his role as Troy in the Community movie. "The Community movie, we're supposed to be -- there's some progress on it -- we're supposed to be shooting it soon," he said. "Haven't seen the script, don't know. In true Dan fashion, we'll probably get it on the first day. But yeah, I mean, like, it's supposed to be happening. I know just as much about it as you do."

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It's currently unknown if there are plans for the Community movie to feature key cast members who joined the show in later seasons, such as Jonathan Banks, Paget Brewster or Keith David (who played Buzz Hickey, Frankie Dart and Elroy Patashnik, respectively). However, one original cast member who will almost certainly not be involved in the film is Chevy Chase, who played Pierce Hawthorne in the first four seasons of Community. Chase left the show under acrimonious circumstances, making his final appearance in the Season 5 premiere before Pierce was killed off.

The Community movie will debut on Peacock, though does not currently have a release date.

Source: TVLine

Noah E. Dominguez is a news editor at Comic Book Resources who joined the site as a news writer in the summer of 2018. He even writes features on occasion. He has also written for sites like WhatCulture and Gaming Access Weekly (formerly Gamer Assault Weekly), and holds a degree in mass communication. What will he do next? Stay tuned. You can follow him on Twitter at @NoahDominguez_