The next series in the Office world officially has a title — and a premiere date.
The show, in which the documentary crew from The Office lands on a new subject, is called The Paper. It follows the publisher (Domhnall Gleeson) and staff of a historic but struggling newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
The series, from former Office showrunner Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, is set to premiere in September. Peacock also released the first image from the series, which also shows Oscar Nuñez, who will reprise his role as Oscar Martinez from the earlier series.
Nuñez, Gleeson and co-star Sabrina Impacciatore appeared on stage Monday at NBCUniversal’s upfront presentation to advertisers, and Nuñez related that he talked with Daniels that post-The Office, he imagined Oscar moving to a more cosmopolitan environment.
“Greg heard me and moved Oscar to Toledo, Ohio, which has three times the population of Scranton,” Nuñez said. “So it’s nice to be heard.”
Daniels told The Hollywood Reporter during an interview for an Office oral history that The Paper will employ much of the same crew that worked on the former series and that he’s excited to work on another mockumentary.
“It’s about this struggling Midwestern newspaper that’s much reduced from its glory days. A lot of the story lines are about how this guy, Domhnall Gleeson’s character, is trying to restore this paper, and he just doesn’t have the budget for hiring reporters, and he has to use all the staff that work there on a volunteer basis to be reporters. They’re completely untrained and don’t know what they’re doing,” Daniels said. “It’s a fruitful premise. There’s a tremendous history for local papers. The villain here is the internet and the ability to look at everybody’s news for free, and all the ad revenue going to Google.”
The Paper also stars Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young and Tim Key. Duane Shepard Sr., Allan Havey, Nate Jackson, Mo Welch, Nancy Lenehan, Molly Ephraim and Tracy Letts will have guest roles. Ikumelo, Edelman, Rahill and Welch are also writers on the series.
Universal Television produces the series. Daniels and Koman (Nathan for You) executive produce with The Office creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Howard Klein, Ben Silverman and Banijay Americas.