‘Community’ Movie Update: Joel McHale Says The Cast Is On Board But Finding Money Is Tricky

If you’re a fan of NBC and Yahoo Screen’s “Community,” you may be wondering if it will make good on its promise to stretch the series for “six seasons and a movie.” Now, with the Season 6 finale long behind the Greendale human beings, one cast member is sharing details about the project’s current status.

Joel McHale, who played the series’ arguable main protagonist Jeff Winger, was at the CBS upfront red carpet to promote his new comedy series, “The Great Indoors.” He was asked by Variety about the future of the “Community” movie. As fans know, when NBC was looking to cancel the series, fans took a joke from one of the episodes to rally for more of the sitcom, calling for “six seasons and a movie.” When Yahoo Screen picked it up for Season 6 before going under, fans realized their viral campaign might become a reality. However, McHale admits there’s still a long way to go.

“Yeah! We’re bringing back Yahoo Screen! It’s going to be great!” he joked to the outlet, before seriously answering. “I’m sure if somebody funds it, we would love to make a movie. The way [creator] Dan [Harmon] has already described it — which I could not agree more with — is it can’t just be a two-hour episode. It has to have a real budget and it has to be probably pretty epic. We need money. Netflix has the money!”

The 44-year-old comedian was joking about Netflix and there are currently no concrete plans to bring the show back in movie form. However, the series has a small but devoted following, so fans fully expect that someone with deep pockets will bet big on the comedy one more time in the near future. One reason a “Community” movie is a relatively safe bet is the fact that most of the cast members have said they would be on board to return to their Greendale characters, despite all their other ongoing projects. According to Entertainment Weekly, both Gillian Jacobs, who played Britta Perry, and Jim Rash, who played Dean Pelton, have very recently discussed their desire to return to their characters to complete the “six seasons and a movie” request.

But the creator, Harmon, who previously admitted he’s wary about fans campaigning on the show’s behalf, doesn’t want to pull the trigger on a movie unless someone can both back it and do so with enough clout to make it an epic event rather than an extra-long episode.

Would you like to see the “Community” gang return for a movie? Post your thoughts on the matter or tweet them to @TylerMcCarthy.