Even Greg Daniels Thinks An ‘Office’ Reboot Could Be a Mistake

Now that the writers’ strike has tentatively ended, get ready for a flurry of project news, promises Puck’s Matthew Belloni. “We’re also about to see a firehose of announcements of projects and castings that have been held back for fear of bad optics or violating guild rules,” he writes. The first such project Belloni mentions? “Greg Daniels is set to do a reboot of The Office.”

Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.

Uh-oh. That might not be such a good idea, according to no less of an authority than Daniels himself. He previously worked on an update that would have featured new cast members working alongside old favorites in that familiar Scranton office park. But did Daniels believe bringing Office 2.0 into reality was actually a good idea? At best, his feelings were mixed. “It was such a perfect thing that I would hesitate to open it up. We got the chance to end it the way we wanted to end it,” he said in 2019. “It wasn’t like we were interrupted in the middle of a run or something. So in a sense, it’s completely an artistic whole.”

Then there’s the issue of potential audience indifference. “I can’t tell whether fans would want more of it,” Daniels confessed to Collider in 2022. But if he were to go forward, it might take the form of an exploration of the Schruteverse vs. picking up where the original show left off. “I think it would just be sort of like an extension of the universe, you know what I mean, like the way Mandalorian is like an extension of Star Wars. But I don't know if that would be something people would want or not, it's hard to tell.” 

There are definitely some people who want an Office reboot. According to Consequence TV, several cast members have raised their hands in recent years to say they’d be down with reprising their old roles, including Office Ladies Jenna (Pam) Fischer and Angela (Angela) Kinsey, Creed (Creed) Bratton, and Leslie David (Stanley) Baker. Clearly, Baker would jump back in, since he already tried to launch his own Uncle Stan spinoff via a controversial Kickstarter. That project never saw the light of day.

Another faction that wants to see more of the office supply mockumentary? That would be the folks behind Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service that’s still struggling to find traction. At the time of Peacock’s launch, Bonnie Hammer, then chairman of digital enterprises, told Deadline, “It is my hope and goal that we do an Office reboot.”

For better or worse, it sounds like Hammer’s wish is about to come true.