How do you turn a sitcom into a movie, without making a wacky Brady Bunch Movie style parody that is. Whenever I hear rumors about popular sitcoms coming to the big screen, that’s always the question I find myself asking. Even The Simpsons, though animated and wickedly brilliant, just doesn’t seem like it’d fit to me. At least that might have a shot of working, maybe in the same way South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut worked (Homer in bed with Saddam?) or the greatness of Beavis and Butthead Do America (TP for Bart’s bunghole). But on a sliding scale of sitcoms that might possibly work as theater fodder, “Friends” rates somewhere right near the bottom next to “Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place” (I hear that’s Donald Gregory’s next project). Of course that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. There’s money to be made.
So I guess it should come as no real surprise to hear rumors that there’s talk of Friends: The Movie. People inexplicably love pretending these people are their friends, and I guess the theory is that they’ll love them enough to make the cast even richer. UK E-Zine Digital Spy reports that Jennifer Anniston and David Schwimmer have ”expressed [interest] in the project which would make each of the six lead cast members £10 million richer.” That’s a lot of money in American.
At least they aren’t pretending to do it for the fans, or for their art or whatever. Money. Pure and simple. Odd though, does Anniston really need money? What happened to that successful movie career she had going? Schwimmer I understand, but Jennifer Anniston just dumped Brad Pitt, what good does it do her to revist that lousy sitcom? Most actors like to get away from their sitcom roots when they’re trying to develop a burgeoning movie career. I could see Matt LeBlanc going for this, I mean he’s one step beyond Marcel the Monkey, but for Anniston this is a move that makes no damn sense. She’s already better than this.
