Throughout most of 2017, there have been questions about Glenn Howerton’s future with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. After the Season 12 finale, Howerton said “I’m certainly staying open to the possibility of doing more, but there is a possibility that I will not.” But what really complicates things, potentially, is that the actor is also now starring in a new NBC comedy, A.P. Bio, which some fans have taken as confirmation of him leaving FXX’s Sunny.
Back in November, it seemed pretty clear to many that Howerton would not be back after some quotes from Vulture Festival, where he said, “Eh, damn it… I will say this: All joking aside, I love these guys and we have an absolute blast working together. We’ll see.”
Rob McElhenney also commented at the time that "'We’re getting back to the writers’ room in February [2018]' Later in the discussion, he said production is slated to start in April and the release date would be in the fall of 2018.” And speaking about Howerton’s role as Dennis specifically, Charlie Day added,
“There is a possibility that maybe we would have Dennis in part of a season, not a complete season. I think we would still do a great season. There is a possibility that we have Dennis for an entire season, which would be fantastic… I personally would not want to do the show without Dennis. And talking with Glenn, I know he still has a lot of love for the show and wants to do the show. I imagine we’ve not seen the last of Dennis Reynolds.”
However, today at the TCA panel for AP Bio, Howerton answered a question about Sunny, saying,
”I’ve not officially left It’s Always Sunny, so I hope people understand that. This is a totally separate project that I’m doing. The thing about doing a show for 12 years is that people might have a hard time seeing you as anything else […] I wasn’t planning on jumping into anything else, but I saw it was Lorne Michaels and Seth Meyers, and I just loved it.”
When asked a follow-up question about whether his A.P. Bio schedule would allow him to do both, he confirmed “Absolutely.”
He added later that,
“I don’t know if this is going to turn into a ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ thing where we make them when we can or if it’s gonna pick up where it left off and it’s gonna be every year again. I don’t really know [...] We’ve talked about [a gap between season]. We love the show and we love each other and we want to keep doing it and if we can get away with just doing it whenever we want, why not? Creatively speaking, we just want the show to be good, so if any of us is feeling burned out and we feel like it’s gonna compromise the quality of the show, we just won’t do it.”
The schedule is actually similar to that of his Sunny co-star Kaitlin Olsen who stars in Fox’s The Mick, so it’s very possible for Howerton to do both. My instinct is that Dennis will be in part of, or most of, the upcoming season. Regardless, Sunny will be back in 2018, so that’s something to celebrate!
