Donald Glover will make his official return to the ‘Community’ movie
Joel McHale, who plays Jeff Winger on the successful NBC sitcom Community, announced on an episode of Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk Off Camera that Donald Glover will be back reprising his role as former high school football star Troy Barnes for the movie version of the TV series.
“Donald’s coming back and that’s really important. The fact that Donald’s going to do it, that was the big piece,” he stated. “But I think everyone’s coming back. I mean, so far we’re pretty good. And I think that will happen. If not then, you know, Donald will be there.”
Peacock TV has not yet confirmed the news, but following fans rallying cries for the film, McHale’s talk only supports what Glover had said earlier in April to GQ. He told the magazine that “we’re supposed to be shooting it soon,” adding that he hadn’t “seen the script, don’t know. In true Dan [Harmon] fashion, we’ll probably get it on the first day…it’s supposed to be happening. I know just as much about it as you do.”
On the show, Glover played one of the core members of the study group, appearing on the show since it premiered in 2009. His young character grew up over the seasons, but he left when his career started to shift in a different direction, meaning he wasn’t a part of the final season. He created, wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the series Atlanta, in which he played Earnest “Earns” Marks, simultaneously hitting the charts under his stage name Childish Gambino. In 2018, during filming the series, he was nominated for five Grammy awards and recently hit headlines with his direction of Swarm (2023) which told a genre-bending horror story parallel to the fans of Béyonce.
So far, what we know is that Glover was not officially part of the cast list when Peacock announced the Community movie last September, and Chevy Chase (who played millionaire Pierce Hawthorn) was amongst some names not included in the list. However, the reliable word of McHale is clearing it all up for us Community Fans. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said when Ripa asked if Chase would be part of the movie. “There weren’t any issues at all when we were making the show,” he added jokingly.
Chase was said to have had a tough relationship with the rest of the cast as well as the show creator, Dan Harmon – leaving via a “mutual agreement” following a slur on the set of season 4. The series ran from 2009 until 2015 with 6 seasons altogether, and it was reported that core casts contracts were inspiring, so the service decided not to move forward with future seasons, resulting in a permanent cancellation.
It is much to the delight of Community fans that the actor, comedian, singer, and rapper Glover will be returning for the official movie, and we can undoubtedly rely on McHale for more news on what the film with involve. The Community movie will begin filming next summer.
