“A Huge Blessing”: Dan Harmon Is Glad The Strikes Delayed Community Movie Filming

Community creator Dan Harmon shares a new update on the long-awaited film, revealing that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes were a blessing in disguise. First airing in 2009, Harmon’s sitcom followed the misadventures of a group of students at Greendale Community College, with the show ultimately coming to an end with season 6 in 2015. Last year, however, it was officially confirmed that a Community movie was happening, fulfilling the show’s own “six seasons and a movie” promise, with filming expected to start this past summer.

Now, as the Community movie’s release date remains up in the air, Harmon, in a recent interview with Associated Press, explains that the filming delay actually helped the movie’s script.

While filming was expected to commence in June, the creator reveals that the script wasn’t quite ready. Check out Harmon’s full comment below:

“We had a draft of the a script that was theoretically ready to go. I don’t think creatively it was all the way there, which is why I was starting to panic about us being scheduled to start shooting, and then the [writers] strike happened.

“I do think it was a huge blessing for this particular project because it shut everything down long enough for us to … When we got back to rewriting that script, which we’re almost through the process of now, we had so much more clarity than if we had been taking that thing to the set and starting to shoot it.

“I’m really excited about it. We’ve come upon the right story and the right format of the movie, and it’s going to be great. It’s going to be something to be really proud of. It’s designed to be absolutely backwards from the goal of letting everybody, new and old fans, just feel like things are complete. Unless they see the movie and want to reboot a series.”

Can The Community Movie Live Up To The Hype?

Generally, the first three seasons of Harmon’s show are considered to be the strongest. Community season 4 was infamous for its lower quality due to Harmon’s temporary firing, but his return for seasons 5 and 6 saw quality improve. The very fact that Harmon is involved, then, is a positive sign for the Community movie, as the show has proven that it really needs his unique creative voice in order to succeed.

Despite Harmon’s involvement, however, questions still remain regarding which members of the Community cast are returning. While Joel McCale, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Ken Jeong, and Jim Rash are all confirmed to reprise their roles, Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown are not yet sure-things, and Chevy Chase is all but guaranteed to not appear. The show’s core cast was one of its greatest strengths and later seasons, despite the quality of the writing, did suffer from key character absences.

Harmon has previously suggested that Glover was going to return as Troy for the film, with production actually set to going to take place in Atlanta purely so that he could participate, but it’s not clear if this is still the case due to the actor’s busy schedule. It’s still unclear whether Brown will reprise her role as Shirley. With as many as three core Community cast members not returning, the movie may struggle to recapture the glory of the show’s heyday. Harmon’s latest script update, however, is certainly a positive sign.