‘Neighborhood’
Mitchell Haaseth / ©NBC / Courtesy Everett Assortment
“I don’t assume it’s an excessive amount of of a spoiler to say that the story would contain the gang getting again collectively,” says Dan Harmon.
That’s how he, star Joel McHale and co-writer Andrew Visitor pitched the film round city, pre-strike. And although Harmon and Visitor nonetheless have work to do on the script, which Peacock in the end greenlit, a Greendale Neighborhood Faculty reunion is prone to stay core to its premise.
Through the sequence’ run from 2009 to 2015, “six seasons and a film” had turn into each a hashtag and a rallying cry for Neighborhood followers. Then, shortly earlier than the pandemic hit, Sony approached Harmon, keen to significantly discover the “and a film” after watching the present get pleasure from a powerful second life in streaming. Harmon subsequently recruited Visitor, who’d labored on the early seasons and was introduced again for the sequence finale.
“I believe Dan, as a part of his evolution of understanding himself and his artistic course of, is aware of that he wants a associate,” affords Visitor, talking to a topic that Harmon explores in nice depth in his latest THR cowl profile. “It’s why he has any person working Rick and Morty and any person working Krapopolis, and so I believe each Dan and Sony stated, ‘Who’re we going to pair you with right here?’”
Over lunch with Harmon at The Smoke Home in early 2020, Visitor agreed to come back aboard. From there, the dialog shortly turned to what the film could possibly be and, simply as importantly, who could be a part of it. “It turned a really prolonged course of as a result of we wished to incorporate as a lot of the forged that wished to be included and subsequently wanted to know who was earlier than we knew what the film was going to be,” recollects Visitor, who was talking to THR for the Harmon profile. “As a result of if we’re simply making a film with Jim Rash and Joel McHale, there’s a film there, however we have to determine that out sooner reasonably than later.”
To their delight, everybody apart from Chevy Chase, who had left earlier than the sequence wrapped, agreed to return. The problem turned syncing all of their schedules, notably because the ensemble contains now massively in-demand expertise like Donald Glover in addition to stars Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs and Yvette Nicole Brown. And so far as Harmon was involved, capturing them individually was a nonstarter. “As a result of the factor that’s going to matter most to me as an viewers member or to anyone who cherished that present is seeing these individuals see one another,” he says. “And so they nonetheless love one another, and it’s not going to really feel the identical should you’re capturing them individually at totally different months in several areas.”
Earlier than the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes grounded manufacturing to a halt for a number of months (and counting), Harmon reveals that the plan was to shoot the movie in Atlanta to make sure that Glover could possibly be there. “And Donald was stoked,” he says of the present’s greatest breakout, who departed the sequence just a few seasons shy of its finish. However now that the stoppages have wreaked havoc on everybody’s capturing schedules, Harmon acknowledges how frightened he’s about the entire mission falling aside. As he places it, “By the point we will recoordinate, what are the percentages that everybody’s schedule goes to as soon as once more align?”
It isn’t Harmon’s solely concern, nevertheless. Assembly excessively excessive fan expectations looms massive as effectively. “And that’s the fandom that’s been probably the most supportive of me, all informed, and has endured probably the most for supporting me,” he says. “As a result of I wasn’t interested by them after I was feuding with Chevy. Solely later did I notice that I’d damage these individuals who didn’t wish to take into consideration me as some form of odd, self-styled Kubrick. They cared about Greendale, this world that I created, and abruptly, they had been getting this unadulterated aspect order of me, which was not truthful to them.”
And in spite of everything that, he actually doesn’t wish to allow them to down now. “I hate to say how terrified I’m to do it improper, as a result of there’s part of me that is aware of that that concern can’t presumably lead to a very good factor,” Harmon continues. “And also you’re not going to get anyplace doing an impression of what you assume you must do or what you assume they need, however I actually don’t wish to do it improper, and it’s really terrifying. However then I’m holding on to the hope that being trustworthy with myself about how scared I’m is a minimum of a solution to break the cycle.”
