Entertainment
Lisa Kudrow Saw That Fake 'Friends' Movie Trailer & Her Reaction Will Hurt
It feels like people are always trying to lower fans' expectations about the possibility of a Friends (co-creator: Marta Kauffman) reboot, but this right here is why you should never give up hope. Lisa Kudrow addressed the fake Friends movie trailer on Conan during her Jan. 25 appearance, and it's safe to say it's gotten her thinking about a reboot. The fake trailer was posted to a channel called Smasher and is compiled of footage from post-Friends projects like Cougartown, Episodes, and Web Therapy, where the former cast mates have done cameos on each others' shows. And although it's far from the first of its kind, this newest trailer stands out because of the huge amount of interest it's garnered in a relatively short amount of time. Not to mention the fact that it's gotten a former Friends star talking about it.
In the less than a month it's been since the fake trailer's Jan. 12 release, it's picked up over 7 million views. Another trailer from 2014 — which host Conan O'Brien seems to be confusing with this one, actually — has been viewed over 38 million times. But, all together, that's a whole lot of views for a fake reboot of a show that's been off the air for over a decade.
As Conan points out to his guest, at $15 a ticket, all that audience engagement translates to quite a bit of cash ready to get raked in by any real Friends reunion in the future. And Kudrow hardly disagrees. "Something should be done," she told the host, before quickly adding, "I don’t know what." She continued,
"They’re rebooting everything! How does that work with Friends, though? The show was about people in their twenties, thirties. The show isn't about people in their forties, fifties. And if we have the same problems, that's just... sad."
Essentially she's restating what others closely connected with the show have already said: we'd love to, but it's not feasible. In December 2016, Jennifer Aniston shot down reunion rumors, saying that Friends took place in a more "nostalgic" time when technology wasn't such a distraction, and that "we've lost that" now. At a Grace and Frankie screening in May 2017, Friends co-creator Martha Kaufman was even more unequivocal: "Nope! Never happening. I know, [rumors] happen all the time! Not happening. Not ever." In a previous appearance in 2013 on this very show after a similar hoax, Kudrow told Conan that it's hard seeing everyone get so excited. "I feel really bad. That's actually something that's never going to happen." Ouch.
But here's the thing: impossible or not, we're still talking about it. Fourteen years after the 2004 finale, this is still on people's minds. And not just audiences — the stars, too. When the fake video went up, Kudrow says that Courteney Cox was the first person she heard from, and that the Cougartown actress wondered, "What do we do?" "Nothing," Kudrow says she told her former costar, "I don’t know what to make of it! It's just sort of these weird clips from things that clearly have nothing to do with Friends." (Well, one thing they could make of it is their own version, aka a real movie, but that's just spitballing.)
Regardless, this is a topic that clearly still comes up between the two friends, with a lowercase "f." They're still in touch and aware of Friends in the zeitgeist, so there's clearly still some Phoebe Buffay and Monica Geller in them after all. Even though we've been told repeatedly that a reunion or a reboot can't happen, don't give up hope. If these fake Friends movie trailers get one of the former cast mates talking about the possibility for even one more day, then they've done their job.