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Six Seasons and a Movie! Almost eight years after its series finale in 2015, Community will finally fulfill its catch-cry prophecy. The show's lead star Joel McHale revealed back on September 30, 2022, that the film was officially in production via Twitter and Instagram. The streaming platform Peacock will be the future streamer of the film. Previously, the Community cast and creator Dan Harmon have been questioned about the potential movie for several years. Yet, the busy schedules of all the show's stars certainly made it difficult to coordinate a film. Over the years, the cast maintained hope and even collaborated with each other on various projects in the meantime. Almost all the cast members guest-starred on Ken Jeong's 2015 sitcom Dr. Ken and have voiced characters for Harmon's other popular show with a cult following, Rick and Morty.The closest we got to a Community reunion before was, of course, the 2020 Zoom table read where the main ensemble (minus Chevy Chase) read Episode 4 of Season 5 "Cooperative Polygraphy". The event served as a long-awaited reunion full of nostalgia and has finally built up to the official production of the movie. Community first aired in 2009 and revolved around the story of Jeff Winger (McHale), a smarmy lawyer who is forced to go back to college due to his illegitimate college degree. Deciding on a community college called Greendale, he attempts to take a shortcut to get back to his job. Unfortunately, he makes the painful realization that it'll take a lot more work than he wishes to deal with. Yet, Jeff does befriend a Spanish study group of misfits who eventually become his family through all the misadventures that they experience while at Greendale. Such tomfoolery ranges from campus-wide paintball to finding secret trampolines. Deemed a comedy that was ahead of its time, Community gathered a massive cult following of fans who managed to save the show twice from cancelation with online campaigns and steadfast loyalty. The pay-off has finally come full circle to manifest the initial-joke-turned-catch-cry of #SixSeasonsandaMovie.Before we find out if things are truly still in the darkest timeline, here's everything we know so far on the Community movie.Editor's Note: This article was updated on June 4 with the latest update on the production.
When and Where Will the Community Movie Release?
There is no official release date for the film but with its current schedule, we can expect the film to come out sometime in 2024. As mentioned, Peacock and Sony Pictures TV secured the rights to the movie, which means it'll be available to stream on the NBC Universal platform. There have been no plans mentioned yet of releasing the movie to cinemas. All six seasons are set to arrive on Peacock as well, and you can currently watch them on Netflix:
Which Community Cast and Crew Members Are Returning For the Movie?
The exciting announcement of the movie in September 2022 involved McHale first revealing a majority of the returning cast members by tagging them on his social media announcement post. The members set to reprise their roles include Gillian Jacobs, Alison Brie, Danny Pudi, Ken Jeong, and Jim Rash. Their returns were most likely expected given that the characters of Jeff Winger, Britta Perry, Annie Edison, Abed Nadir, Ben Chang, and Dean Craig Pelton remained on the show right till the final sixth season. The cast went further on to post the same announcement to their accounts to confirm their involvement.
However, the status remains unknown about the possible return of other key cast members who left the series early including Yvette Nicole Brown and even Chevy Chase. The chances of Chase returning are more unlikely due to the death of his character Pierce Hawthorne. Additionally, the 2013 fallout between the actor and the show's creator behind the scenes suggests that the cast will most likely be able to carry on without him. Brown has remained coy about her return as Shirley Bennett but has expressed enthusiasm after sharing the movie's announcement on her own social media accounts. As for Glover, the singer/actor has made no comments yet about his involvement, but Harmon has expressed optimism stating that he is most likely coming back "based on word of mouth, but it's just the deal isn't official". Until further confirmation is announced, we can only hope for the official return of Shirley Bennett.
That said, one actor whose return was up in the air has confirmed his return: Donald Glover. Glover, who played Troy Barnes on the show, was not among the cast members initially announced to be returning but has since revealed his involvement with the project. The prolific actor, director, and musician was an original cast member of the show but left in Season 5.
In terms of the crew, Harmon has been confirmed to return as the writer for the film despite the tumultuous relationship he had with the series, which included his exit as showrunner during Season 4 (only to return on the subsequent fifth and final seasons). Andrew Guest (Suburgatory) is also involved, co-writing the screenplay. There has been no official announcement yet of a director.
When Does the Community Movie Start Filming?
McHale previously stated in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live that the movie will potentially start filming this summer, specifically, in June. However, the production has now most likely been delayed indefinitely as a result of the ongoing WGA writers' strike. McHale revealed the information in an interview with Collider's Tania Hussain saying, 'I’m not exactly sure, but I’m guessing it’s not going to start on time.' He also expressed his support for the strike stating:
I don’t say this lightly, but I stand with the WGA, and there’s no doubt that pay has gone down 23% since 2007, and that needs to change.
At the start of June 2023, McHale confirmed the delay and said that everyone involved would get back to work on the project "when this strike is over". This effectively means that this is an indefinite delay, so production is unlikely to pick up again anytime soon. "That was a bummer, because we were getting very close. But at the same time, I’m a thousand billion percent behind the writers. The writers need to be paid," the actor told TVLine, adding that "when this strike is over, we’ll come back and we’ll make it. And I am sure that [series creator] Dan [Harmon] will put in 12 jokes addressing the fact it took [this long to come together]. But we’ll get there. It just may take a little while."
So What Is Community: The Movie About?
The official plot is still under tight wraps, but Harmon promises that a lot of work and consideration has gone into crafting the potential story for the film. Since 2021, he has voiced the major challenges that would come with approaching the movie's plot such as the large time gap since the finale and coming up with a plausible reason to bring the core group of characters back together. Only last December, Harmon revealed some information on Six Seasons and a Podcast regarding what has been ruled out for the movie, which unfortunately included one of the show's iconic running gags of paintball. Overall, there's still some major excitement and endless possibilities of what the movie will include while it remains in the early stages of development.