'Friends' News: New Sitcom for Joey, Gunther Talks Movie

A couple of Friends-related updates from the past week: First, in a bit of news that can actually be verified, former Friends star Matt LeBlanc, who played Joey, will be starring in a Showtime/BBC co-production called Episodes, from Friends co-creator David Crane, to air on both networks in 2010. The show will feature LeBlanc as a fictionalized version of himself, as the star of the dumbed-down American version of a British sitcom (perhaps like the short-lived American version of Coupling, once touted as the new Friends?). The self-parody and meta-showbiz stuff recalls LeBlanc's Friends co-star Lisa Kudrow's cult comedy The Comeback.

In much less likely news, James Michael Tyler, who had a recurring role on Friends as Rachel-obsessed coffee-shop clerk Gunther, told British newspaper The Daily Mail that the Friends movie was "definitely on," despite the fact that no announcement has been made, no other news source has reported it, and the main stars consistently deny any plans for a movie whenever asked. I'd be extremely skeptical of both the notoriously unreliable Mail, as well as Tyler, who seems like a peripheral player at best. And I'd much rather see the cast move on to something like LeBlanc's new show (which sounds promising) than rehash the past.

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