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Credit: Inside the Magic The Office is officially getting a remake – and it’s set to be totally different from the original.
From Moana (2016) to Harry Potter, the entertainment industry is deep in its remake era right now. While Disney gets the most attention for its remake habit, other studios are increasingly leaning into their old properties to fill their production slates for the next few years.
The latest rehashed projects to hit the headlines include How to Train Your Dragon (2010) – which just announced its live-action cast – and, of course, The Little Mermaid (2023), which currently sits at the top of the box office as proof that not all remakes are a bad idea.
Even the TV industry isn’t immune. News just dropped that Prime Video Australia is set to remake the beloved sitcom The Office – with a twist.
Set to debut in 2024, the remake will feature a female-led cast. Stand-up Felicity Ward is set to star as the main character – Hannah Howard – who manages a branch of a packaging company called Flinley Craddick. The series will follow Howard and her team as they discover that Head Office wants to shut down her branch to instead make everyone work from home.
Of course, this isn’t the first remake of the show. If you thought Disney loved putting a new spin on the same tale, that’s nothing compared to The Office. The original version premiered in the UK in 2001, starring Ricky Gervais (who also co-created the show with Stephen Merchant) as the hapless David Brent.
Gervais later cameoed as Brent in the show’s longest-running remake (and arguably its most successful iteration) in the US. This was led by Steve Carell as Michael Scott, who led the Scranton branch of paper company Dunder Mifflin, remains one of television’s funniest characters ten years after the show wrapped up its final season.
The show was also remade in other countries, including France, Chile, Saudi Arabia, and Poland. Australia’s version marks the thirteenth remake of The Office but the first with a female lead.
Gervais shared his own excitement about a female-led version of The Office, as well as how it’ll tackle the modern-day workplace. “I’m very excited about Australia remaking my little show from the turn of the century,” he said. “Office politics have changed a bit in 20 years, so can’t wait to see how they navigate a modern-day David Brent.”
The show’s lead, Ward, is best known for the ABC series Spicks and Specks and The Ronnie Johns Half Hour. The new cast also includes Edith Poor, Steen Raskopoulos, Shari Sebbens, Josh Thomson, Jonny Brugh, Pallavi Sharda, Susan Ling Young, Raj Labade, Lucy Schmit, and Firass Dirani.
BBC Studios Australia and New Zealand and Bunya Entertainment are also attached to produce the first eight-episode series, of the Australian remake which will film over eight weeks in Sydney in June.