The Office’s Paul Lieberstein is making a workplace comedy with an amazing cast for Comedy Central
The film will star Ken Jeong, Leslie Jones, Jason Alexander, Paul F. Tompkins, and many more
Aux News The Office
A lot of writers are taught to “write what you know,” the idea being that if you pull from your own experiences or expertise, you’ll end up with more confident and more thoughtful prose that is an honest reflection of who you are as a writer and a person. Better yet, if the “what you know” bit is “workplace comedy” and you’re a veteran of The Office, that’s a good excuse to just lean into it and make more workplace comedies.
That’s what The Office executive producers Ben Silverman and Paul Lieberstein (the former popped up as one of the dudes at Athlead and the latter is, of course, Toby Flenderson) are apparently doing, with Deadline revealing that the two of them are making a “workplace comedy film” for Comedy Central that is tentatively titled Out Of Office. (That title is a little on-the-nose, huh?) The movie, which Lieberstein will write and direct, is about “the blurring lines between working from home and would-be/should-be private life,” focusing on a woman who “finds that keeping her job is somehow tied to helping her boss navigate his fast-failing marriage.”
Now, if this were any other workplace comedy film, the obvious similarities to The Office would be the only thing we’d talk about, but Out Of Office has a secret weapon in the form of a ridiculously solid cast: Ken Jeong, Leslie Jones, Jason Alexander, Cheri Oteri, Jay Pharoah, Milana Vayntrub, Paul F. Tompkins, Jim Rash, Chris Gethard, and Oscar Nuñez. Wait a minute… Oscar Nuñez? He’s from The Office! Is this just The Office? You can’t fool us, Lieberstein! B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling are hiding somewhere behind the scenes, aren’t they? We know the Office Ladies are getting ready to share some fun details about this movie right at this moment! Don’t try to fool us with one of those classic Jim pranks!
Regardless of whether or not this is The Office, Deadline points out that it sounds like it’s a new version of a similar project called Remote that Silverman and Lieberstein were shopping around at the start of the pandemic.
23 Comments
Chris Gethard was also on The Office.
Ken Jeong appeared in one episode of The Office as well.
Yes! From improv!
“He told me he couldn’t show it to me, but he has a gun.”
Senor Chang meets Toby and George?SIGN ME UP.
Senor Chang meets Toby and George?If you’re going to do Community x Office reference, Dean’t you forget someone?
Annie’s Boobs?
and Dean Pelton!
Does this mean Lieberstein won’t be involved in the King of the Hill revival?
Great cast but Lieberstein in charge of The Office was the beginning of the end.
No. Season 5 is the best season of The Office.
Even accepting the premise that S5 was the best season (which is…debatable, but I’ll agree it’s within the “solid seasons of the The Office” category), he also ran it for S6 and beyond. 1 solid season vs. 4 uneven/okay at best to lousy seasons isn’t the best record.It may be unfair to put the blame on him entirely for that, because most shows just tend to run out of gas once you get into 100+ episodes (and losing Carell also hurt), but it did decline on his watch.
It also didn’t help that NBC didn’t seem to grasp that the show was popular despite the Nielsens, and kept trying to undercut it (including by eventually not bringing Carrell back). Lieberstein probably didn’t help matters much, but I think he did fine under the circumstances.
“Ghosted” was at least something different, until they turned it into The Office.
I haven’t been this excited about a comedy cast since Space Force!…
I’m here for Toby and for Mommy.
Jason Alexander is just going to sit at his desk looking annoyed.
Sometimes he’ll be napping under it.
The fact that the haven’t made a Squirrel Girl movie starring Milana Vayntrub is criminal negligence.
I’m thinking that ship might have sailed. Marvel tried, but only sort of.
At this point I’m just hoping the pilot from 2018 gets released
Milana should get hired more in general. She deserves more work than phone commercials.
Nah, BJ Novak was too busy watching his phone waiting for the call that The Premise was renewed for season 2.He’s gonna be waiting.
“Leslie Jones”
Nope, I’m out.