Ryan Murphy was at the Hotel Chelsea in New York on Wednesday night, at FX’s party celebrating “American Horror Story”, when somebody asked him about “Glee”, and his answer turned a gossip question into a headline. “Well, funny you ask,” he told Entertainment Tonight, “’cause I just finished the script an hour ago.” There is now, by its creator’s account, a written script for a “Glee” reboot. What there is not, yet, is a network, a series order, a cast or a date, and that gap is the most important thing to understand about the news.
Murphy said he has been in touch with around ten members of the original cast, that “they all had a lot of questions”, and that “they all were very enthusiastic about the idea.” He also said that nobody has read the script, and he was candid about how early all of this is: “Maybe I shouldn’t, I don’t know. It’s fun just to try.” That is a writer describing a draft, not a studio announcing a show. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Glee” and for how the original series ended.
There is now, by its creator’s account, a written script for a “Glee” reboot.”
It is worth being precise about what “finished the script” means in television. A finished script is the thing a producer takes to a network in the hope of getting a pilot or a series order. It is a step, and a meaningful one for a project that until recently was only an idea Murphy floated in interviews, but it is not a greenlight. Plenty of finished scripts, including some by very famous writers, never get made, and Murphy’s own phrasing, that he wanted to “write a couple of them to see what people think, particularly the cast”, suggests he is using the pages partly to find out whether the people he needs actually want to come back.
The interest itself is not new, since back in July Murphy told People that younger viewers finding “Glee” on streaming had made him think about revisiting it in “some new incarnation.” That phrase matters, because it leaves the shape of the project wide open. A “Glee” reboot could be a sequel with the original New Directions as adults, a new glee club at McKinley High with a few familiar faces as teachers, or something else entirely. Murphy has not said which, and the word “reboot” in the headlines is doing a lot of guessing on his behalf.
The original finale, which aired in March 2015, already left a door open for exactly this. It jumped forward five years to 2020 and gave almost everyone a happy ending: Will Schuester running McKinley High as a performing arts school, Rachel Berry winning a Tony, Kurt and Blaine married and touring schools together, and the auditorium renamed in Finn’s honor. A sequel would pick up from a future that is now our past, with most of the characters grown and settled, which is either a gift for a writer or a trap, depending on whether the new story needs to undo that ending to find its drama.
To understand why this lands as big news, you have to remember how big “Glee” was. The pilot aired on Fox in May 2009, straight after the “American Idol” finale, and the series ran for six seasons until 2015. At its peak it was a genuine pop phenomenon rather than just a hit show. The cast recordings of songs from the episodes charted constantly, and the Glee Cast ended up with more entries on the Billboard Hot 100 than the Beatles. There were sold-out concert tours, a 3D concert film and a reality spinoff, “The Glee Project”, built to cast new members of the club. The show won six Primetime Emmys, and Jane Lynch won one of them for playing Sue Sylvester.
It also mattered beyond the ratings. “Glee” put gay teenagers, disabled students and kids who did not fit anywhere at the center of a network comedy at a time when that was rare, and it won the GLAAD Media Award for outstanding comedy series. Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel, in particular, meant a great deal to a generation of viewers. That legacy is a large part of why a revival is being greeted with real excitement rather than the weary shrug most reboots get, and it is also why any new version will be judged against a high and very personal bar.
There is no way to talk about bringing “Glee” back without talking about who cannot come back. Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, died in 2013 while the show was still on the air, and the series wrote a tribute episode for him. Naya Rivera, who played Santana Lopez, drowned in 2020. Mark Salling, who played Puck, died in 2018 after pleading guilty to possession of child sexual abuse material. The run of tragedies around the cast became the subject of a 2023 docuseries, “The Price of Glee.” Any reunion has to decide how to handle those absences, and it will be watched closely for whether it handles them with care.
The cast who are still here have mostly done well for themselves, which is its own kind of scheduling problem. Lea Michele spent 2022 and 2023 starring as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” on Broadway. Darren Criss won an Emmy for playing Andrew Cunanan in Murphy’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” and later a Tony. Jane Lynch has barely stopped working, and getting ten busy actors back into one production is hard, and Murphy has not said which ten he spoke to. He did say they were enthusiastic, and he has worked with some of them again since “Glee” ended, which counts for something.
The business question is where a revival would live. “Glee” was produced by 20th Century Fox Television, which is now 20th Television under Disney, and Murphy moved his own deal back to Disney in 2023 after a stint at Netflix. The fact that he broke the news at an FX event, promoting a series FX airs, is hardly a coincidence, though nothing has been said about a home for the show. Disney owns FX, Hulu and the “Glee” library, so the obvious route runs through the same company, but it is a guess until someone signs something.
Murphy’s slate is also crowded. “American Horror Story” is back for a thirteenth season, he has “The Shards” in the works, and his output over the last decade has been relentless. That cuts both ways for “Glee”, because he clearly has the clout to get almost anything he writes made, and he also has so much in motion that a passion project can sit in a drawer for years. The honest reading of Wednesday’s comment is that “Glee” has moved from something he talks about to something he has written, and that is all.
For fans, the right response is cautious interest. A script exists, the people who made the show are talking to each other again, and the man who created it wanted it enough to sit down and write it. Those are real signs, but until a network orders it and a cast list appears, this is a reboot in the same sense that every beloved show is always one interview away from a reboot. We will believe in the new New Directions when we hear them sing.
What Do You Think? Should “Glee” come back as a sequel with the original cast as adults, or as a new glee club with a few familiar faces? How should a revival honor Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera? And after all these years, is Ryan Murphy the right person to bring “Glee” back, or should he leave it alone?
See you on the next binge!
