Rainn Wilson said the cancelled spinoff around his The Office character could have made “another billion dollars”.
The US version of The Office, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, ran from 2005 to 2013. It remains one of the most popular sitcoms in the world on streaming platforms.
Wilson went on to land three consecutive Emmy nominations for his role in the five-time Emmy-winning sitcom.
Wilson, who played authoritarian paper salesman Dwight Schrute on the series, talked about The Farm, a spinoff meant to follow Dwight and his family on their beet farm, and why it ended up being cancelled.
“NBC at that time had a new regime that came in and they wanted to do big, bright, flashy, splashy shows that were multi-cams and going back to Friends kind of thing. And they were just not interested at all in Office spinoffs at the time,” he said on The Daily Beast’s Last Laugh podcast.
“Had they taken The Farm, they would probably have another billion dollars in the bank. Even now, all the people that have seen The Office 20 times, they are going to watch The Farm at least once or twice.
“Would it have been as good as The Office? No. No way. Not even close. Would it have been good? Would it have been solid? Would it have been a good solid comedy? Yeah, it would have, and we would’ve done some really cool stuff. And I think they really missed out.”
In 2013, the ninth and final season of The Office aired an episode titled “The Farm” which showed Dwight and his family reuniting for their Aunt Shirley’s funeral and deciding to run their farm together. The episode was intended to serve as a backdoor pilot for the new series focused on Dwight, but was met with poor to mixed reviews, and was eventually not picked up.
In the same podcast appearance, Wilson singled out the “A Benihana Christmas” double episode from the third season as egregious by today’s standards.
“Listen you know, the Benihana Christmas episode where Michael and Andy draw with a sharpie on one of the Asian women that they’ve brought back to the Christmas party is jaw droppingly kind of horrific,” said Wilson. “And it’s a tricky conversation, you know?”
Earlier this year, Gervais and Merchant spoke to The Independent about the 20th anniversary of the US adaptation and praised Wilson’s performance.
“I was worried about Dwight,” said Gervais. “I thought he was too over the top but then that just settled in and worked with the show – because the show was bigger as well.”
Merchant agreed, adding that “at first there’s a theatricality to the performance, but as you watch it, he is just able to make it rich.”
The US version of The Office recently spawned a new spinoff series, The Paper, which earned a three-star review from The Independent critic Nick Hilton.
“The Paper will inevitably be compared to The Office, and in largely unfavourable terms,” he said. “But the question of whether it is good enough to survive on its own is moot. It doesn’t have to. Fans of The Office will give it a go, and over the course of a slow-burn first season, come to feel some affection for the denizens of the Truth Teller Tower.”
