To quote Finn Hudson: “The show has to go everywhere, or something.” » He was right: “Glee” is back.
Disney+ and Hulu have given the green light to a reboot of Ryan Murphy’s famous (and infamous) musical drama series. “Glee” premiered on Fox in 2009 and ended in 2015 after six seasons following a group of choir members from Lima, Ohio, as they dealt with the ups and downs of high school and beyond. It was a massive cultural phenomenon best remembered for the blunt, sometimes controversial way it tackled topics like sexuality, race, disability, mental health and more – as well as its covers of songs like “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Teenage Dream,” “River Deep, Mountain High” and “Smooth Criminal,” among others. The series remains popular today, as does its music, which averages 4.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
The original cast included Lea Michelle, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison, Jane Lynch, Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Darren Criss, Amber Riley, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Harry Shum Jr., Chord Overstreet, Mark Salling and more.
Details about the new “Glee” are scarce; Disney hasn’t shared anything other than the fact that the series is produced by 20th Television and will stream on Hulu and Disney+. Casting information is not yet known, although it can be assumed that several of the original stars will return. “I’ve been in contact with about 10 of the original cast members,” Murphy recently said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, in which he confirmed that he had just written a reboot script with collaborators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. “It’s very nice, and they all had a lot of questions, but they were all very excited about the idea.”
Murphy’s comments came weeks after Michele told E! News that she would be happy to join a ‘Glee’ reboot: “I love ‘Glee.’ I will always love ‘Glee.’ I love Ryan Murphy. It holds such a special place in my heart for me… I will follow Ryan wherever he goes.
Speaking to Bustle recently, Colfer noted that rebooting “Glee” would be complicated after Rivera’s death, but that he would think about it: “It was a really hard show to do, and it would be really hard to do it now that Naya (Rivera) is gone. But I know Glee fans would probably come after me with pitchforks and jazz hands if I said no. So I don’t know, but I hope I get more information and I could actually think about it.”
Rivera died in 2020 at the age of 33, tragically drowning in a lake while saving her young son who had fallen into the water. She was the third death among the “Glee” cast: Monteith died of an overdose in 2013, while the series was still on the air, and Salling committed suicide in 2018 after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
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