Warner Bros. is finalizing agreements with the cast of “Friends” for a reunion special that will likely be used to launch the HBO Max streaming service this spring, reports the Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.
Under the terms being discussed, each of the six stars of “Friends”—Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer—would receive between $2.25 million and $2.5 million for the show.
Initially, the cast was offered $1 million for the special, but they balked, a person close to the cast said.
The special isn’t a new episode of “Friends” but rather a retrospective and interviews with the cast. No host for it has been named.
One possibility is Ellen DeGeneres, whose daytime talk show is produced by Warner Bros. and who has her own deal to make content for HBO Max.
“Friends,” which ran on NBC from 1994 through 2004, has become hugely popular in reruns, especially on Netflix Inc., which held streaming rights for the show until the end of last year, when WarnerMedia outbid it for streaming rights to put the show on HBO Max. That deal is valued at $425 million for five years.
WarnerMedia believes reruns of “Friends” will help persuade people to subscribe to the service, which is being offered free to HBO subscribers and for $14.99 a month for people who don’t already have HBO. HBO Max is a combination of the current HBO service and a new platform with original programming as well as movies and TV shows from the Warner Bros. library.
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