By Sharva Srivastava

Copyright timesnownews

With the release of a new The Office spinoff, The Paper, on Peacock, longtime fans are eager to see what their favorite characters are up to now. In a recent appearance on The Last Laugh podcast, Rainn Wilson, who famously played Dwight Schrute, opened up about The Farm, an abandoned spinoff that was intended to explore his quirky character’s life further. Why ‘The Farm’ never took off Wilson explained that at the time The Farm was pitched, NBC had undergone a leadership change. The new executives preferred “big, bright, flashy, splashy shows” that leaned toward multi-camera setups similar to Friends. As a result, spinoffs from The Office were not a priority. “Had they gone ahead with The Farm, they probably would have another billion dollars in the bank,” Wilson stated. He believes that fans, especially those who have watched The Office multiple times, would have at least given The Farm a chance. “Would it have been as good as The Office? No way. Not even close. But it would have been solid… a good comedy that explored cool ideas,” he added. He lamented that NBC missed out on a lucrative opportunity. NBC’s Late Realisation Wilson pointed out that NBC never fully understood the potential of The Office during its original run. “It wasn’t until about five years after the series ended—when billions of minutes of it were being streamed on Netflix—that NBC realized, ‘Wait a minute, this is a cash cow.’” According to him, the show’s value and longevity became clear only after it gained popularity on streaming platforms. ALSO READ: The Long Walk Ending EXPLAINED And How It Compares To Stephen King’s Novel The Farm’s fate and Wilson’s reflections Though The Farm was teased in a backdoor episode during The Office’s ninth and final season, Wilson confirmed in a 2012 tweet that the project would not proceed, even before the episode aired. On the podcast, he also shared that The Office’s humor was often “jaw-droppingly horrific,” as it centered on clueless, insensitive, and prejudiced characters that mirror certain aspects of American society. “You want to encourage it, because it’s funny and also satirizes a particular sensibility,” he explained. Yet, he acknowledged that such content would be far more difficult to produce in today’s environment without significant changes. About The Paper In The Paper, the new Peacock series created by Greg Daniels, the same documentary crew from The Office follows Domhnall Gleeson’s character, the eager publisher of The Truth Teller, a struggling newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. Alongside volunteer reporters, he works to revive the paper amidst financial and cultural challenges.