NBC Universal Media has confirmed that it is working on a new series inspired by the US version of The Office, the famous mockumentary from the mid-2000s that continues to be one of the most loved and cited comedy TV series still today. The series was commissioned by Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, and its production has been rumored for some time: it will neither be a reboot nor a sequel to the cult series with Steve Carell, but rather a “fake documentary” on the editorial team of a run-down newspaper set in the same universe where Dunder Mifflin, the company at the center of the original, exists. It should be produced by the same producer as the original, Greg Daniels.
The Office was created in 2001 by English comedian, actor and author Stephen Merchant together with comedian, actor and presenter Ricky Gervais, who played the office manager of a paper company with an irritating personality. The series was broadcast on BBC Two between 2001 and 2002 and was a good success, but only two seasons were made. The longest-running and best-known is its US version, adapted by Daniels, which aired between 2005 and 2013 for nine seasons on NBC and currently available in Italy on Netflix.
Just like the original, this one The Office it told of the boredom, the rivalries, the inconveniences and the flirtations at the center of the relationships between the employees of an office in Scranton, Pennsylvania, whose boss was Michael Scott, a character bordering on the absurd and the ridiculous, and always constantly cringe.
“The crew that documented the Scranton headquarters of Dunder Mifflin is looking for a new subject when they come across a historic Midwestern newspaper in dire straits, and the publisher tries to turn it around with volunteer reporters,” says NBC presenting the new series. For now there are no other details and there are not even confirmations on the cast: according toHollywoodReporters however among the protagonists there would be the Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson, known among other things for Ex Machina And Black Mirrorand Sabrina Impacciatore, who also got noticed outside Italy thanks to her role in the second season of White Lotus, set in Sicily.
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The US version of The Office, in which Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak acted among others, told fictional stories using the typical stylistic features of documentaries, in such a way as to give the viewer the illusion that what he is watching is a description of the reality. Much of its success is linked to the fact that anyone who works in an office can empathize with or at least recognize certain dynamics, even if exasperated. Over the years the series received 42 Emmy nominations, winning five, and in 2006 and 2008 it was chosen as best TV series by the American Film Institute.
Precisely because it is a cult series, appreciated in a very transversal way and in some ways venerated like few others, any possible project concerning it creates enormous expectations. In 2017, for example, NBC had floated the idea of re-proposing it, with a protagonist other than Carell, but then nothing came of it.
Lisa Katz, executive of NBCU Entertainment, confirmed that the new series includes a new cast and will be set in a newspaper office “in the Dunder Mifflin universe”: it was conceived in collaboration with Universal Television and co-created by Daniels and by comedian, TV writer and producer Michael Koman, who worked among other things for the popular TV show Late Night with Conan O’Brien and for docu-reality Nathan for You by Nathan Fielder. Daniels and Koman will executive produce the series alongside Gervais and Merchant.
The authors of the new series began working on it in January 2024: production should begin in July and something more definitive should also be known about the cast in the coming months.
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