Friends cast to get almost Rs 18 crore paycheck each for reunion?

Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer are taking home a whopping $2.5 million per head - that's almost Rs 18 crore -- for coming together in an untitled, unscripted reunion special that will celebrate the long-running series, reports variety.com.

The series, which ran from September 1994 to May 2004, may have aired its series finale over 15 years ago, third-party market researchers have established that Friends has been one of Netflix's most-watched shows.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment had earlier said that sale of physical and digital versions of Friends have "roughly tripled" since news broke that the show would be leaving Netflix.

The special, as well as all 236 episodes of the show, will be available upon the HBO Max streaming service's debut.

"Guess you could call this the one where they all got back together -- we are reuniting with David, Jennifer, Courteney, Matt, Lisa, and Matthew for an HBO Max special that will be programmed alongside the entire 'Friends' library," said Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max and president of TBS, TNT, and truTV, in a statement.

"I became aware of 'Friends' when it was in the very early stages of development and then had the opportunity to work on the series many years later and have delighted in seeing it catch on with viewers generation after generation. It taps into an era when friends - and audiences - gathered together in real time and we think this reunion special will capture that spirit, uniting original and new fans."

Ben Winston will direct the special and executive produce alongside Friends executive producers Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane.

The Warner Bros. Unscripted & Alternative Television and Fulwell 73 Productions are behind the programme.

Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer are also executive producing the special, with Emma Conway and James Longman on board as co-executive producers.