The Office showrunner on a reboot: it’s very speculative

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Last month, there was a round of headlines thanks to a very brief mention in a Puck News post about The Office showrunner Greg Daniels being “set to do a reboot.” Reporting and speculation went rampant, but nothing was ever officially commented on until now. Like a true industry veteran who knows how to play the game, Daniels fully let the cycle of free publicity play out before commenting on the report. Turns out, it’s not something Daniels is opposed to happening, but rumors of an Office reboot are greatly exaggerated.

“Well, I think that it’s very speculative,” Daniels, 60, said of a potential revival during a Tuesday, October 17, interview with Collider. “The fact that it kind of blew up based on one line in a Puck piece was kind of cool, I guess, in the sense that the fans still care a lot.”

While Daniels couldn’t confirm that a new iteration of the beloved sitcom is happening, he also didn’t fully shut down the idea, hinting that something may happen in the future. “When there’s something to announce, I will definitely announce it,” he promised fans.

When it comes to how a show like The Office could work today, Daniels told Collider that it would be an “interesting” storytelling challenge, especially with all the advancements in technology over the past decade.

“When you watch old movies it’s like a game to identify what wouldn’t work when everybody had a cell phone,” he explained. “Like, all the story moves of people like, ‘Oh, they just missed you. Oh, dang.’ Now maybe I’ll get on that boat and go to, you know, it’s just like, ‘Oh, how frustrating if you only had a cell phone.’ I mean, it’s an interesting question for sure.”

Reboots and revivals have only gained momentum in the past few years, but Daniels hasn’t always been as open to the idea of revisiting the show, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2019 that he would “hesitate” to “open” such a “perfect” thing back up.

“We got the chance to end it the way we wanted to end it. It wasn’t like we were interrupted in the middle of a run or something,” he shared. “So in a sense, it’s completely an artistic whole. But, that said, I don’t know, the cast every now and then talks about getting back together in some form, but I don’t see it being a reboot like the way Will & Grace was rebooted.”

[From Us Weekly]

And there you have it. It kinda feels like that Puck news item was a little press leak to test the waters to see if there was even any substantial public interest in the idea. When we first talked about the reboot, I think most of us were in agreement that there’s no need to reboot The Office. From what I saw around the Internet, the news blew up because it was something fans had an opinion about…and most opinions were unified in the, “Thanks, but no thanks” camp.

It is interesting what he said about it being a “storytelling challenge” to navigate present day things like technology in a potential reboot. I mean, we had cell phones, the Internet and social media when the American version started in 2005, lol. Is “technology” some sort of code for “various problematic behaviors that were used for comedy?” Just like any show we’re watching 20 years later, there are definitely things that don’t hold up, but I feel like they could just not write those things into a new script. Is it really a hold-up that they can’t make certain jokes anymore? Don’t worry, Greg. We’re all still going to laugh at a good “That’s what she said.” Anyway, I’m still on Team Nah when it comes to the reboot and once again recommend Superstore to anyone who is looking for a good replacement to binge.

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