When I checked in with some of the former writers and producers on the late, great Freaks and Geeks for a recent “FF/RWD” feature, I asked creator Paul Feig if it was at all possible that the gang could get together for new episodes, as the Arrested Development folks did on Netflix.
Feig said it was unlikely. First off, the cast members have gone from kids to adults and moved well beyond high school. Second, Feig does not want to mess up the legacy of a show he is mighty proud of. “I’m afraid of anything that would sully the memories of what we did,” he says. “You’d have to go in very soberly and make the stories as good or better than before.”
For what it’s worth, he didn’t officially rule out the idea. “Who knows?” Feig adds. “You never say never.”
Here’s a fun one to debate over beers–has a show ever spawned as many huge careers, not only the performers (James Franco, Seth Rogen, Linda Cardellini, Busy Philipps), but the folks in the writers’ room, including Feig, Judd Apatow, Mike White, Gabe Sachs, Jeff Judah, Jake Kasdan and several other big TV writers, producers and directors?
As I said in the story, Feig asked his writing prospects for projects that were their own ideas–plays, screenplays–as opposed to the standard spec scrips, which he says were pretty much all Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time. Feig says he got a sense early on in the show’s development that he had a special bunch. “I thought, wow–these are funny and talented and real writers,” he says.
Adds writer J. Elvis Weinstein: “It was a really good writers’ room, a room filled with very funny people. It was a bunch of people who were really into making a special show.”
