Ryan Murphy’s musical dramedy Glee is being rebooted, with Disney+ and Hulu announcing that production has been greenlit for a new series from 20th Television.
The original show premiered on Fox in 2009 and ran for six seasons before ending in 2015. It followed a group of pupils at a high school in Lima, Ohio, as they navigated adolescence through performances with their glee club.
Details of the new series remain limited, although several members of the original cast have indicated that they will return. Murphy has also said that a script has been written with collaborators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan.
“I’ve been in touch with around 10 of the original cast members,” Murphy said. “It’s very sweet, and they all had a lot of questions, but they all were very enthusiastic about the idea.”
Glee reboot cast plans
Lea Michele, who played ambitious performer Rachel Berry, has expressed support for reprising her role. “I love ‘Glee.’ I will always love ‘Glee.’ I love Ryan Murphy. It just holds such a special place in my heart for me… I will follow Ryan wherever he goes,” she said.
Heather Morris, who portrayed Brittany S Pierce, confirmed her involvement on Instagram with a photograph of her character wearing the Cheerios uniform. Jane Lynch also reposted the casting news, indicating that she would return as the formidable teacher Sue Sylvester.
Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans, posted “Reunited and it feels so good” on X and followed it with a photograph of himself alongside Darren Criss, who played Blaine Anderson.
Kevin McHale, who portrayed Artie Abrams, has also responded to the news. Dianna Agron posted on Instagram around the time of the announcement but did not refer to her character, Quinn Fabray.
Matthew Morrison, who played teacher Will Schuester, is not expected to appear after reportedly not being approached. He remains “hopeful that he will be part of the project”, however.
Chris Colfer, who played Kurt Hummel, has previously suggested that returning would be difficult following the deaths of several members of the original cast. “It was a really tough show to do, and it would be really hard to do it now that Naya [Rivera] is gone,” he told Bustle.
“But I do know that Glee fans would probably come after me with pitchforks and jazz hands if I said no. So I don’t know, but hopefully I’ll have more information and I can actually think about it.”
Rivera, who played Santana Lopez, died in a drowning accident in 2020 at the age of 33 while saving her young son. She was the third member of the Glee cast to die, following Cory Monteith’s death from an overdose in 2013 and Mark Salling’s death by suicide in 2018 after he pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.
The original programme became known for its covers of songs including “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Teenage Dream”, “Defying Gravity” and “Valerie”. Its music continues to attract more than four million listeners on Spotify each month.
Amber Riley, Chris Colfer and Harry Shum Jr have not yet publicly reacted to the reboot announcement. Riley played Mercedes Jones, Colfer portrayed Kurt Hummel and Shum played Mike Chang in the original series.
