Friends Star Lisa Kudrow Would Do A Reboot, But It's Not Going To Happen

Friends is one of the most popular and beloved TV shows ever, but don’t expect NBC to bring the show back with a reboot or a reunion of any sort–though some of the cast would be up for it.

Speaking at the Tribeca TV Festival recently, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman shot down any possibility of a revival. “We will not be doing a reunion show, we will not be doing a reboot,” Kauffman said, as reported by Deadline. “The show was about that time in life when friends are your family.”

The other creator of Friends, David Crane, commented in agreement with Kauffman. “We did the show we wanted to do. We got it right, and we put a bow on it,” he said.

Given the immense popularity of Friends, the show’s stars have been asked numerous times over the years about a potential reboot or revival. The latest to weigh in was Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe. She said on Kevin Nealon’s hiking show that she would be interested in coming back for a new version of Friends, but it won’t happen.

“If everyone else was doing it, I would do it; yeah. But it’s not happening,” she said, adding that she’s heard Kauffman and Crane talk about how Friends will never come back.

In March this year, Kauffman talked about why bringing back Friends is a bad idea.

“One, the show is about a time in your life when your friends are your family. It’s not that time anymore. All we’d be doing is putting those six actors back together, but the heart of the show would be gone,” she told Rolling Stone. “Two, I don’t know what good it does us. The show is doing just fine, people love it. [A reunion] could only disappoint.”

The entire catalog of Friends is available on Netflix in the United States, and the streaming network reportedly paid $100 million to keep it there through the end of 2019. Starting in 2020, Friends will move to HBOMax.

As of 2015, the show was bringing in $1 billion every year from syndication, with stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, and Matthew Perry making $20 million a year from that based on their 2 percent share of syndication revenue, according to USA Today.