Dan Harmon has confirmed that a Community movie has been outlined and pitched, giving fans hope that a longtime promise will finally be fulfilled. Premiering on NBC in 2009, Community focused on suspended lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), who was forced to go back to a local community college, where he joined a study group filled with charming oddballs. Community combined snarky cynicism and pop-culture references with a surprising emotional warmth to win a dedicated fanbase. At one point during the show's history came the promise that it would continue through "six seasons and a movie." However, the show's road through those six seasons was very rocky.
Harmon, the show's creator, was fired from Community after season 3, with the network citing his erratic behavior as the primary reason. This led to Community season 4's hated "gas leak" year, which also heralded the departure of multiple writers and executive producers from the previous three seasons. The network was finally convinced to bring Harmon back for Community season 5 before canceling the show in the face of declining ratings. The short-lived streaming service Yahoo! Screen then commissioned Community season 6, but due to costs involved, and the platform itself being disbanded, the long-promised follow-up feature never surfaced — until now
The origins of Community's "six seasons and a movie!" promise goes back to season 2, episode 21, "Paradigms of Human Memory," when Abed (Danny Pudi) becomes obsessed with NBC's short-lived superhero show The Cape. In response to a cruel jibe by Jeff about the show's prospects, Abed confidently — yet wrongly — predicts it will last for six seasons and a movie. Despite the many backstage issues that plagued the majority of Community through season 6, Abed's prophesy was adopted as a mantra by fans and applied to the real show. Dan Harmon's promising update on the prospects for a Community movie now brings the promise closer to reality, but what story could a feature-length Greendale reunion tell?
What's Been Teased Before About The Community Movie's Story
Dan Harmon hasn't revealed much about the Community movie beyond the existence of a story outline. Discussions about a potential film project have been taking place since before Community finally ended in 2015, and the demand has snowballed in the seven years since. During a 2020 table read for charity, Donald Glover pitched a possible story that would revisit Troy's Community fate after he and Star Trek's LeVar Burton were captured by pirates. Believing that his character would still be lost at sea, Glover pitched an idea where Abed would set out to find and possibly rescue his best friend.
Glover's pitch built on a previous comment made by Harmon while promoting Community season 6 at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con. He noted the movie's potential for exploring Troy's whereabouts. Both Harmon and Pudi were positive about Glover's idea during the table read. Harmon even noted that the idea writes itself, and jokingly started making notes on a whiteboard. For now, Harmon is remaining quiet on the movie's actual story outline, so audiences will have to wait to see if Community: The Search For Troy becomes a reality.
Will The Community Movie's Story Be Set At Greendale?
At the same 2014 Comic-Con panel, Dan Harmon also suggested that the Community characters could leave Greendale behind. By the end of Community season 6, the majority of the study group has moved on. Pierce (Chevy Chase) is dead, Annie (Alison Brie) embarks on an internship with the FBI, Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) moves to Atlanta to look after her father, Troy is held captive by pirates and Abed has moved to L.A. for a job in TV. Meanwhile, Jeff, Britta (Gillian Jacobs), the dean (Jim Rash), and Chang (Ken Jeong) are all still either teaching or hanging out at Greendale.
The geographical distance between Community's core characters would certainly allow the movie to explore the world outside of Greendale Community College. If the plot followed Abed's search for Troy, the other study group members being spread across the U.S. and beyond could give the search a suitable road movie structure. Alternatively, a movie-scale threat to Greendale could bring all the former Community characters back together from their separate lives to save their alma mater. However, Greendale faced numerous existential threats over the course of Community, so it may feel regressive for a movie to focus so heavily on such a storyline. How much of the movie takes place in Greendale, and how much of it takes place elsewhere, will be a difficult balance to strike in the conception of the story.
What The Community Movie's Story Needs To Work
Ultimately, the biggest thing that a Community movie needs is the core cast reunited on-screen. As great as it was to see actors like Michael K. Williams, Keith David, Paget Brewster, and Jonathan Banks involved in later Community episodes, the final seasons really missed core characters like Troy and Shirley. Thankfully, the Community cast all seem incredibly positive about making a movie work out, so hopefully filming schedules and cast availability will line up and bring everyone back together again.
The other thing that a Community movie needs is Dan Harmon as the driving creative force of the story. Thankfully, Harmon is also fully on board for the movie, and his incredibly creative mind and passion for the show will ensure that the movie will be the best send-off that it could possibly be. With him and the cast in place, audiences can expect the movie to contain the same level of heart, snark, and high-concept comedy ideas that defined the show from the very start.