The Officially Greenlit ‘Office’ Sequel Switches From the Dying Paper Industry to the Dying Newspaper Industry
It’s official: Peacock is ordering Greg Daniels and Michael Koman’s new series set in the Office universe, and the original Office (U.S.) creator will give the Dunder Mifflin treatment to the one industry that’s worse off than the paper business: print journalism.
Daniels’ plan to return to the show that helped to make NBC the center of the sitcom universe in the late aughts seemed to be promisingly close to fruition when, late last month, the untitled Office series booked its first two stars, Irish actor Domnhall Gleeson of Harry Potter and Star Wars fame and Italy’s Sabrina Impacciatore from Season Two of The White Lotus. Today, Peacock and Universal Television officially announced that the new Office series will begin production in July with Daniels and Koman steering the ship, though the creatives insist that the yet-unnamed series set in the world of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute isn’t a reboot of the first American Office show, nor will it return to Scranton, Pennsylvania to peddle office supplies.
Lisa Katz, President of NBCUniversal Entertainment, proclaimed in a statement, “In partnership with Universal Television and led by the creative team of Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, this new series set in the universe of Dunder Mifflin introduces a new cast of characters in a fresh setting ripe for comedic storytelling: a daily newspaper.”
If they wanted to choose a business less destined for failure as the setting of the new series, they could have just made a show about WUPHF.
“It’s been more than 10 years since the final episode of The Office aired on NBC, and the acclaimed comedy series continues to gain popularity and build new generations of fans on Peacock,” Katz added in her announcement, dramatically underselling the importance of The Office to NBC’s streaming service. When NBC first reclaimed The Office from Netflix and added it to Peacock’s library in early 2021, it generated more Peacock sign-ups than any other move in the platform’s history, including, hilariously, the original launch of Peacock.
Along with Daniels and Koman’s leadership, the untitled Office series will also see the return of the original Office (U.K.) creators, Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais, who will serve as executive producers in the project, a title as famously nebulous and non-committal as that of Quabbity Assurance.
Peacock’s official release on the new Office show states, “The documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch is in search of a new subject when they discover a dying historic Midwestern newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it with volunteer reporters.” Like the first Office (U.S.), the new project will feature an ensemble cast, with Gleeson and Impacciatore serving as the leads.
To a significant portion of Peacock’s subscriber base, this is the biggest news the streamer has broken since they first added The Office to their library — too bad Peacock didn’t give a real-life struggling publication the scoop.
