Joel McHale Gives ‘Terrible Answer’ When Asked About the ‘Community’ Movie
Community fans have been waiting for years to get confirmation of the rumored movie to complete its “six seasons and a movie” cry. Luckily, the series’ cast often shares updates on how things are progressing. However, when asked about the highly-anticipated film in a recent interview, Joel McHale left fans with a “terrible” answer.
Joel McHale is hopeful a ‘Community’ movie will get made
McHale starred in all six seasons of Dan Harmon’s cult comedy, Community. An accompanying movie has been teased since the final season aired in 2015. And with the show’s streaming resurgence, McHale thinks there’s a good chance a movie will get made.
“I’m setting aside all the money to make [the movie] happen,” he told ComicBook. “Before when I’d answer the question, I’d be like, ‘Maybe, I have no idea.’ But now, with its success on the streamers during the pandemic, the interest has returned. I would say it’s more likely than it was before, definitely.”
But the ‘Community’ star admits it will take a lot to make the movie
A Community movie requires several things to happen, including financing and a good script from Harmon. And according to McHale, these things just haven’t fallen into place just yet.
“It’s like building an aircraft carrier,” he said in his chat with ComicBook. “You go, ‘We’re gonna do this, right? Yeah, okay, everybody’s here, we got the money.’ Now, this thing has to actually get built.”
“There’s a lot more than just ‘Hey, let’s make a movie now, great,'” McHale added, admitting the update isn’t as thrilling as fans hope. “It’s a lot of moving parts. So I’m more positive than I was, definitely, but we’ll see. That’s a terrible answer, but definitely better than my answer two years ago.”
Most of the original ‘Community’ cast is on board for a movie
While some of the “moving parts” McHale talked about have yet to line up, the good news is that most of the original Community cast is ready to make a movie. Many of the actors —including Alison Brie, Danny Pudi, Kevin Jeong, Gillian Jacobs, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Donald Glover — are busy with other hit projects.
But they all came together for the Community reunion. And they’ve been optimistic about making a movie for fans.
“It’s always been about scheduling and never desires,” Brown told Pop Culture. “As soon as Dan writes it or one of the other great writers writes it, and we all can find a time on this calendar — where everybody can set aside a month to do it — 100% we would do it.”
Not only is the cast on board, Harmon, who created and wrote the series, is also mulling storyline ideas. When talking to Vulture, the showrunner revealed how he’s trying to come up with ideas to appease loyal fans while pulling in a new audience.
“Here’s the biggest philosophical question: Are you supposed to service a mythical new viewer?” he mused. “The obvious, dogmatic, practical, off-the-street answer is like, ‘No, you don’t. It’s fan service. Why would there be a Community movie? Who do you think is going to walk in off the street and buy popcorn and sit and watch a Community movie like that? They deserve to be punished. Why are they doing that?”
“I don’t know if that’s arrogance, pretentiousness, responsibility, self-deprecation, torture,” Harmon added. “I can’t get myself out of that camp. Yes, there will be inside baseball. Yes, there will be fan service, but it has to be couched in.”
