HBO Max’s ‘Friends’ reunion special has finished shooting after delays pushed it back a full year. The unscripted reunion was supposed to shoot and air last spring but was postponed due to the pandemic. But it’s full steam ahead now, and Courteney Cox says the show had a lot of “special surprises.”
Without giving too much detail, Cox told Ellen DeGeneres in an interview that the reunion taping was “unbelievable,” and “so emotional.”
For the first time in 17 year, the ‘Friends’ costars – Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt Le Blanc, and Matthew Perry – reunited on the comedy’s original soundstage, Stage 24, to shoot the unscripted reunion special for HBO Max.
The show was originally set to start taping shortly after the reunion was announced early last spring but was delayed when the first wave of COVID-19 cases burst onto the scene.
Then special was later pushed to mid-May 2020 in hopes of making the launch of HBO Max that summer, but was postponed a second time since the pandemic hadn’t lightened. The most recent target date to start shooting was rumored to be August 17, but with new COVID cases spiking again through the summer, HBO resorted to taking the Friends reunion off the calendar with for a while. Now the show has finally been able to get cast and crew together for taping, but no release date has been set.