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The Inbetweeners fans are still celebrating the recent news that the hit sitcom is returning next year for a third film adaptation – but one cast member’s absence has been a recurring talking point.
While the four leads of the original series (Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, Blake Harrison, and James Buckley) are confirmed to be involved, Emily Atack – who played the popular character Charlotte Hinchcliffe – is among the cast members whose participation is still unclear.
The creators of the series, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, shared an update on The Inbetweeners 3 on Instagram, and hinted at a reason why certain characters will not be featuring.
“As you probably know, we’ve started filming a new Inbetweeners adventure,” they wrote. “We love that everyone is interested, and it’s brilliant that these four idiots are still considered news.
“The rumour mill can sometimes get carried away, so our advice is simple: if you want to fully enjoy what we’ve got in store for you, we’d suggest avoiding photos and conjecture about the story. We promise it’ll be a more enjoyable watch going in knowing nothing.”
The duo confirmed that some characters would not be in the new film, while acknowledging there would be speculation over the reasons.
“For the record, we’d like to clarify that, try as we might, we couldn’t squeeze every single beloved character from the TV shows into this new film,” they said. “That’s on us, and us alone.
“Again, people will speculate about why we make these choices, but sadly the truth is we just couldn’t find a plausible way in the script to bring back all our lovely ‘friends’.”
Before the new film was announced, reports had suggested that producers were attempting to bring Atack on board, with one source telling The Sun that she was “one of the missing pieces in the project they’re keen to get in place”.
Following the exploits of a group of socially unremarkable adolescents,The Inbetweeners originally aired on E4 for three series between 2008 and 2010. The series pulled in record viewing figures, and was subsequently adapted into two theatrically released films.
The Inbetweeners Movie in 2011 and The Inbetweeners 2 in 2014 grossed over £100m between them, setting box-office records for UK comedies.
The new sequel is being developed for the streaming service Netflix, with the possibility of a theatrical release still unconfirmed.
