Six seasons and nearly a decade later, a Community movie is still on the horizon.
In a recent interview, returning star Yvette Nicole Brown confirmed that “it’s going to happen,” but the script is being reworked after she signed on to reprise her role as Christian mother and entrepreneur Shirley Bennett.
“I think it’s being reworked, but we all have read an entire, full script. So a script exists. I heard that we have the big credit in LA that gives you money to make the film. So we’re definitely going to be doing it in LA,” Brown told The Wrap.
Her interview comes after co-star Joel McHale took responsibility for the movie’s delay, telling GQ that fans “can fully blame my schedule” following speculation that Donald Glover’s busy schedule was holding up production.
Brown, who officially joined the cast of Community: The Movie after it was announced in 2022, explained, “For a minute, I wasn’t confirmed, so they have to now change some things, because I am confirmed, and they can now change some things for for Shirley’s character as well. So it’s going to be really, it’s going to be a good time.”
Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown in Community. (Colleen Hayes/NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“It’s just now trying to get all these puzzle pieces together of everybody’s schedule,” she added. “We were scheduled to do it, and then the strike happened. And now it’s like trying to figure out when is so-and-so done with their show? When is so-and-so done with their movie? When is so-and-so off tour? It’s all of those things that we’re trying to now get together, but it’s going to happen. We are going to do the movie, and we’re all on board to do it.”
After creating the NBC comedy series that ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2015 (its final season streaming on Yahoo! Screen), Dan Harmon penned the long-awaited movie with former show writer Andrew Guest.
“A lot of it’s probably going to change,” said Brown, noting that the script is “really funny, it’s very irreverent, it’s silly,” but Harmon and Guest are “always thinking and moving and incorporating things.”
Last month, Community: The Movie was announced as one of 19 projects that will benefit from $51.6 million in incentives from California’s film and TV tax credits program.