Posted in: Peacock, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: community, dan harmon, jennifer hudson, joel mchale, peacock

Community Star Joel McHale Still Can't Believe A Movie Is Happening

Community star Joel McHale discussed the upcoming Peacock movie, his & Ken Jeong's emotional reaction after the charity table read, and more.

Once it was announced that Peacock was backing a Community movie co-written by series creator Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty) and reuniting Joel McHale (Jeff), Gillian Jacobs (Britta), Danny Pudi (Abed), Alison Brie (Annie), Ken Jeong (Ben Chang), and Jim Rash (Craig Pelton), it was only a matter of time (we're talking seconds) before the fans were wanting the creative team to start filling in the blanks. When does it start filming? Where's the teaser? When can we expect it? Are Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown returning? While we await those answers, McHale is sharing how he's feeling about the whole thing with Jennifer Hudson on her daytime talk show. In the clip below, McHale reveals that he's still finding it hard to believe that a show that others wanted to end to many times in the past is finally achieving its dream of a movie. In addition, McHale opens up about his and co-star Jeong's emotional reaction after their 2020 charity table read to benefit World Central Kitchen and Frontline Foods.

So here's a look at what McHale had to share about Peacock's upcoming Community movie, how it feels to be getting the gang back together, and more:

And here's a look at Jeong checking in via Twitter to offer a "truth" in support of McHale's description of how the two reacted after wrapping up the charity table read:

And here's a look back to the Community charity table read of S05E04 "Cooperative Polygraphy" (with guest cast member, Pedro Pascal) from May 2020, followed by the visual Q&A that took place after:

Dan Harmon on What Won't Work for Community Movie

Checking in with Six Seasons and a Podcast, Harmon had some intel to share on the script (written by Harmon and Andrew Guest) for the upcoming movie. In the following highlights (you can listen to the entire episode below), Harmon addresses some of the thematic concepts that worked during the show's run not making the cut for the film & why, and discusses why there needs to be a reason for the gang to reunite that doesn't go down cliched routes like "class reunion."

Community Fans Shouldn't Expect a "Greatest Hits" Tour: "It's a lot easier for me to rule stuff out than tell you what we're pursuing. For instance, we go, 'Do we really think it'd be a good idea to be a paintball episode?' It's one of the first things to rule out because it's the first thing off the top of your head, and that's an issue with the 'Community' movie concept. We did a lot of episodes where you are joyfully locked into a construct that isn't a traditional sitcom narrative but is rather through the lens of David Fincher or Martin Scorsese. There were a lot of special episodes that were kind of like genre homages. The paintball thing was one of them. We tried to do a bunch more paintballs, and they were all perfectly wonderful things to do, but would anything ever capture the joy of the original paintball episode?"

Harmon On Why "Paintball" Wouldn't Play Today, Dungeons & Dragons Out: "You're running around with guns in a school, which was never a good idea on TV, even back then. How can we do that in a way that's acceptable? You sit down to write the movie, and you're like, 'So, we'd do that, right?' Because it's so emblematic of what made our show special and the triumphs we had, the things we contributed as a show. Or we'd play Dungeons & Dragons for 90 minutes. I kinda gotta rule that out — maybe a better writer wouldn't."

Community Movie Won't Go Reunion/Closing-the-School Route: "You're not gonna do anything terribly clever with using the school's demise or resurrection as a device because you don't want too much of your movie to be spent unrecognizable. It wouldn't be outlandish to suggest that enough time has gone by in 'Community' that the world, and not these characters, has changed so significantly that there's a lot to deal with. They haven't been together in a long time, but it's not because they swore each other off… there's a reason to get together, and there's a reason they have to stay together."

Now, here's a listen to the entire episode of Six Seasons & a Podcast, "Intro to Remedial Cinematic Pitches with Very Special Guest Dan Harmon":

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