{"id":387966,"date":"2026-04-20T00:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T00:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/387966\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T00:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T00:19:13","slug":"friends-star-matt-leblanc-to-lead-new-cop-drama-for-cbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/387966\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Friends’ Star Matt LeBlanc to Lead New Cop Drama for CBS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt LeBlanc<\/a>, best known for playing the lovably clueless Joey Tribbiani<\/a> on Friends, is taking a stab at another lead role in a TV series. Per Variety<\/a>, he’s starring in and executive producing a new CBS series called Flint, where he plays a burnt-out LAPD detective. The show has not been greenlit yet, but if CBS goes for it, Flint would be part of the network’s 2027-2028 lineup.<\/p>\n

Since the end of Friends, LeBlanc has stuck mainly to comedy. He starred in the short-lived Friends spin-off Joey on NBC, which was canceled partway through its second season in 2006 (you can watch the whole thing<\/a>, including the un-aired episodes from Season 2, on the official Friends YouTube channel). LeBlanc’s biggest post-Friends success came in the form of the Episodes<\/a>, a Showtime\/BBC series where he played a fictionalized version of himself. Episodes ran for five seasons and earned LeBlanc a Golden Globe award. He also starred in the CBS sitcom Man With a Plan, which aired for four seasons between 2016 and 2020.<\/p>\n

So it’s interesting that Flint is being presented as a drama, although the premise makes it sound like it could at least have some comic elements. LeBlanc’s character, who we can likely assume is named Flint, is about to retire but gets “blindsided when the city extends his service by five years,” according to the official logline. “Determined to get fired, he breaks rules and disobeys orders, which, to his dismay, makes him an even better cop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Matt
\n Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani in FriendsWarner Bros. Television<\/p>\n

Trying to get fired only for the plan to backfire sounds like a classic sitcom shenanigan, but CBS is drafting some serious dramatic talent to manage Flint. The project comes from Evan Katz, who served as a writer and producer on Seasons 2-8 of Fox’s action drama 24, which was definitely not a comedy. Then again, Katz also created the UPN sci-fi comedy series Special Unit 2, so who knows what he’s bringing to Flint? The show could call on LeBlanc’s well-worn comedy chops, or maybe he’ll earnestly play a grizzled detective who’s getting too old for this.<\/p>\n

In any case, if Flint does get picked up, LeBlanc will join multiple of his former Friends costars who have series on the air right now. Jennifer Aniston (Rachel) is prepping for the fifth season of The Morning Show<\/a>, one of the flagship series on Apple TV+. Meanwhile, Lisa Kudrow is starring in the third and final season of The Comeback<\/a>, which airs new episodes every Sunday on HBO. David Scwimmer, who played Ross, was part of the main cast of Goosebumps on Disney+, which was canceled after its second season<\/a> in 2025. Courteney Cox (Monica) hasn’t had a main role on a TV series since the end of Starz’s Shining Vale in 2023, but she did just star in Scream 7, which set franchise records at the box office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, Matthew Perry (Chandler) passed in October 2023. Matt LeBlanc shared an emotional goodbye message<\/a> shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt LeBlanc, best known for playing the lovably clueless Joey Tribbiani on Friends, is taking a stab at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-387966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}