The Office Making A Surprising Comeback?
The Office became massively popular during its time in the UK and U.S., and now it seems as if the show will be making a comeback.
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The Office is arguably the most important sitcom in the history of television. The original series started in the UK and was devised by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. From there, the show would be rebooted into a U.S. version, which was massively popular and launched the careers of many actors including John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer. From that point, the show became so popular that versions in Canadian, Chilean, French, Indian, and Polish were also created. Now the show is making a comeback as a Saudi Arabian version of the show. This will be the 12th international sale of the original format.
The new Arabic version of The Office will be called Al Maktab and will star Saleh Abuamrh as Malik Al-Tumaifi, who is meant to take on the boss role that was previously portrayed by David Brent and Michael Scott. The series will be produced by MBC studios which are owned by BBC. The series will take a shift from being revolved around a paper company into a courier service. Renowned Egyptian filmmaker, Hisham Fathi, will be the director. The series will also star Fahad Albutairi, Nawaf Alshobaili, Saad Aziz, Adhwa Fahad, Razan Mansour, Reem Busati, and Hisham Hawsawi. According to André Renaud, the SVP of format sales at BBC, “Although office working may look slightly different for many of us in 2022, the familiarity of these well-observed characters as they navigate petty rivalries, moments of friendship and humor, and a boss that sometimes makes a fool of themselves still rings just as true.”
That is certainly true, as previously stated, The Office has been formatted into 12 international versions so far. Although it has been 20 years since the UK version of the show aired and nearly a decade since the U.S. version aired, everyone loves the format of the single-camera documentary style that was made famous by The Office. Several shows have adopted that similar shooting style as well. Both the U.K. and U.S. versions pulled in Golden Globe wins for Best Comedy Series and Best Actor for Ricky Gervais. The UK version of the show was the first British comedy series to be nominated for a Golden in 25 years when it won and became the very first to land that award. The U.S. version also landed an Emmy for Best Comedy Series and Best Actor for Steve Carell, among many other awards. Saleh Abuamrh will be among good company if he is to win an award for his acting.
The Office became a cultural phenomenon when the U.S. version was created, and the series finale was viewed by a staggering 5.69 million homes. The highest viewed episode was called “Stress Relief” and was watched by 22.9 million viewers. It did air right after Super Bowl XLIII, but those are massive numbers. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created a series that has translated to many international markets and has made a lasting impression on television.
There are no further details on when Al Maktab (The Office) will air, but it sounds as if production on the new series is going to be starting soon with all the casting and crew announcements being established. We are intrigued to see what this new rehashing of The Office will look like. We also can’t wait to see the new Michael Scott.
