Danny McBride and Rhys Darby Pegged as Potential Replacements for Steve Carell on THE OFFICE

Since Steve Carell’s departure from the hit NBC comedy series The Office after this coming season is inevitable, writers are busy putting together the final exploits of World’s Best Boss Michael Scott.  However, the network is looking further into the future to figure out who will replace Carell as head honcho around the office.  Speculation and suggestions have mentioned familiar faces like Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Holly Flax (Amy Ryan), and even David Brent (Ricky Gervais’ character from the original BBC version of The Office).  However, EW has discovered that Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down) and Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) just might be in line to take the job.  More details after the jump.

Apparently producers have at least reached out to the actors about joining the cast later this season, but there’s no guarantee that it would be for a role to directly replace Michael Scott.  Only adding fuel to the fire, Paul Lieberstein (the showrunner and actor who plays Toby Flenderson) confirms that they’re looking at introducing a new salesman at the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin, but not to necessarily replace Michael Scott.  This implies that perhaps someone we already know will actually be promoted to make room for a new salesman.

While McBride is a wholly interesting choice to join the cast of The Office in any capacity, I think Eastbound & Down will be the only television the funnyman will take on for now.  That doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t be interested, but aside from working on the second season of the HBO comedy series, McBride has more than a handful of film projects on the horizon.  Darby, on the other hand, has an open schedule without the continuance of Flight of the Conchords (where he was absolutely hilarious) — even though he’s a Kiwi, he would be a fantastic and strange blend of Gervais and Carell.  All I know is this decision will certainly have a huge impact on the potential future of the series sans Carell, and I’d really like to see the series take a surprising direction.