The Office Reboot Poised to Feature New Workplace, Different Cast (Report)

Greg Daniels’ in-the-works reboot of The Office is inching closer to reality. According to our sister pub Deadline, Daniels, the architect behind the U.S. adaptation that aired on NBC for nine seasons, is set to convene a writers’ room next week to explore ideas for a new iteration of the franchise.

Per Deadline, the series would be something of a reboot/revival hybrid, in that it would likely be set in a new office with a new cast but “live within the same world” as the Steve Carell-fronted iteration (potentially setting the stage for cameos from the OG ensemble).

It was back in September that news of a possible Office 2.0 leaked, although little was known about the project beyond Daniels’ involvement.

An adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ U.K. sitcom of the same name, the original U.S. Office ran on NBC from 2005 to 2013, focusing on the employees at the Scranton, Pa. branch of the Dunder Mifflin paper supply company. Carell led the series as socially inept Scranton branch manager Michael Scott, but departed the show near the end of its seventh season; he was replaced, to mixed reviews, by James Spader as the enigmatic Robert California. Across its nine-season run, The Office won five Emmys, including the Outstanding Comedy Series trophy in 2006. Since going off the air in 2013, the series has seen its popularity explode via streaming.

A continuation of The Office was last said to be in the works at NBC for the 2018-19 TV season. Carell would not have been involved in that revival, but TVLine exclusively reported at the time that it was to be set once again at Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch and would feature a mix of new and old cast members. The project ultimately did not come to fruition.

Carell, for his part, suggested that The Office would simply not work on present-day television, largely due to his character’s inappropriate jokes about race and sexuality (among other topics) in nearly every episode.

“It might be impossible to do that show today and have people accept it the way it was accepted 10 years ago,” Carell said at the time. “So much of [Michael] was predicated on inappropriate behavior. I mean, he’s certainly not a model boss. A lot of what is depicted on that show is completely wrong-minded. That’s the point, you know? But I just don’t know how that would fly now. There’s a very high awareness of offensive things today — which is good, for sure. But at the same time, when you take a character like that too literally, it doesn’t really work.”