The recurring rumors and hope for a revival of the beloved NBC sitcom The Office have returned this week, and this time it’s come from a surprising source — Bryan Cranston. And the Breaking Bad Emmy winner thinks the Dunder Mifflin crew should now be working on a bigger screen.
Appearing on the Office Ladies podcast, hosted by two of the series stars, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, Cranston floated the idea of a The Office feature-length movie, which would show where the whole gang landed a decade after the series concluded.
“Let’s say that there’s not a reboot series, but what if there was a movie?” Cranston pondered on the podcast. “Something to where we can see where these people are. These people in the entire cast that we’re curious about. We wondered at the end, where did they go? What did become of them?”
Fischer and Kinsey certainly seemed to be on board, but only if the circumstances fit — i.e., if series showrunner Greg Daniels were at the helm of the project. “Because I would trust it. You know?” Fischer replied. “As long as Greg is writing it and he’s in charge of it, then I say yes.”
“I would do it for my kids because I think they would think that’s fun,” Kinsey said.
Cranston, who directed a season nine episode of The Office (“Work Bus”), said he’d only want a minor role in the hypothetical movie. “I just want to be an extra in it,” the actor said. “I would be some guy. I’d be a crossing guard or something like that. Just something.”
That wouldn’t be good enough for Kinsey, though. She floated the idea of Cranston’s new character working at Schrute Farms as one of fan-favorite character Dwight’s (Rainn Wilson) hired hands.
On the heels of his recent turn as a beleaguered judge on the recently concluded Showtime drama Your Honor, and a decade after he hung up the hazmat suit on Breaking Bad’s meth-cooking teacher-turned-kingpin, Walter White — a complex role that brought him four Emmys — Cranston may have to remind audiences that he rose to fame in a sitcom, Malcolm in the Middle — and of course, he’s known for his portrayal of dentist Tim Whatley on Seinfeld.
Talk of rebooting The Office in some capacity has been murmured about and workshopped for years, with a fresh series focusing on a new cast so far never making it out of development. However, talk of exactly that reemerged in January when sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Daniels is assembling a writers room to revive the comedy once again. And Universal Television has been eager to bring back the massive hit for years, particularly after streaming rights to the original nine-season run bounced from Netflix to Peacock to the tune of $500 million.
Now, will Cranston’s reunion dream come true? It may not be in the cards, as Daniels has previously expressed that he has no interest in doing a reboot with the original cast or characters. However, that’s not to say some of our Dunder Mifflin favorites will have left Scranton.
Discussing the rumored reboot with a new cast on her podcast, Fischer, who played Pam, said, “I would love to pop on as a guest.” Kinsey, who played Angela, enthusiastically seconded the notion. And both agreed that if there’s one character who would still be firmly seated at Dunder Mifflin, it could only be Creed (Creed Bratton).