‘Glee’ Club Is Back in Session With a Disney+ and Hulu Reboot

Summary

Disney+ and Hulu have officially greenlit a reboot of Glee, with 20th Television producing

Ryan Murphy has penned a new script alongside original co-creators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, though casting remains under wraps

The musical dramedy ran six seasons on Fox and still pulls millions of monthly listeners on Spotify a decade after its finale

A Glee reboot is officially in the works, with Disney+ and Hulu greenlighting a new take on Ryan Murphy’s musical dramedy. Disney has kept the announcement lean, confirming only that 20th Television will produce the series for both streaming platforms. No official cast, premiere window or plot details have been revealed, but early reports suggest several familiar faces are already lining up for a return to McKinley High.

Murphy has laid much of the groundwork. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, he confirmed he had completed a reboot script with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, the same trio behind the original, and said he had reached out to roughly 10 members of the first-generation cast. “It’s very sweet, and they all had a lot of questions, but they all were very enthusiastic about the idea,” Murphy told the outlet.

That enthusiasm may already be turning into commitments. Lea Michele is set to return as Rachel Berry, Variety reports in an exclusive backed by multiple sources, who described the deal as done while noting the project is still early in development. Representatives for Michele and Murphy have not commented. Heather Morris, who played Brittany Pierce, and Chord Overstreet, who played Sam Evans, have also shared social media posts that appear to hint at their own returns, though neither has been officially announced.

Rachel Berry was the engine of the original series. Across all six seasons, Michele played the driven, self-assured and wildly gifted founding member of the glee club, whose relentless pursuit of Broadway often put her at odds with her classmates. Behind the bravado, the character wrestled with how others saw her and with a string of complicated relationships, most notably her on-again, off-again romance with quarterback and fellow singer Finn Hudson. Michele had already made her feelings about a revival clear, telling E! News weeks earlier that the show still means a great deal to her and that she would follow Murphy to any project he takes on.

Not every original star sounds ready to commit. Chris Colfer, who played Kurt Hummel, told Bustle he would consider coming back but acknowledged how much the cast has lost. “It was a really tough show to do, and it would be really hard to do it now that Naya [Rivera] is gone,” he said. Rivera, who played Santana Lopez, died in 2020 at 33 after drowning while rescuing her young son in a lake. Cory Monteith, who played Finn and dated Michele off screen, died of an overdose in 2013 while the series was still airing, absences any revival will have to reckon with.

The appetite for a return is hard to deny. Premiering on Fox in 2009 and wrapping in 2015, Glee followed a show choir in Lima, Ohio through high school and beyond, quickly growing into a full-blown cultural phenomenon. Its approach to sexuality, race, disability and mental health was often blunt and occasionally controversial, sparking as much debate as devotion. The music was just as central, with covers of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Teenage Dream,” “River Deep, Mountain High” and “Smooth Criminal” turning episodes into chart events. The Glee Cast went on to log more Billboard Hot 100 entries than any act at the time, passing Elvis Presley, and the series earned the Golden Globe for Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy, in both 2010 and 2011. More than a decade later, the soundtrack still averages around 4.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify.