The highly anticipated Friends reunion has been delayed as production has been shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak.
According to Variety, filming of the special episode was scheduled to take place within the next week, however it’s now been pushed back.
The publication reports that the filming of the show will now take place in May at the earliest.
The news will come as a blow to excited fans, who have been waiting for years for their favourite television characters to reunite.
The reunion was officially confirmed in February, with stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer coming back.
The Friends reunion production is being pushed back until at least May (Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
The reunion is set to be unscripted and was due to film on the original Friends soundstage – Stage 24 at the Warner Bros Studio lot in Burbank.
It’s reported that WarnerMedia has paid more than $400million for the rights to the series, which will stream in the US on new service HBO Max.
The series was taken off Netflix in the US last year, however Netflix UK reassured fans over here that it was going nowhere.
Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow will be back (Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Friends executive producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane will be back for the reunion, alongside Ben Winston who will direct and also act as executive producer.
The reunion is one of many series affected by the coronavirus, with UK production companies announcing filming is being stopped and episodes are being dropped.
This week, it was confirmed that production was being suspended on all BBC Studios shows including EastEnders, Holby City and Casualty among others.
Friends is still available to stream on Netflix in the UK (Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
EastEnders is set to air just two episodes a week instead of four, while ITV soap Emmerdale will drop to five weekly episodes, and Coronation Street will go to three.
Filming has been pushed back for the new series of Peaky Blinders, while work on Line of Duty has also been suspended.
Meanwhile, Netflix has halted production on a number of its series including Stranger Things and Grace and Frankie.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
