Modern Family finished up its eleventh and final season on Wednesday night, but there’s already talk of a spin-off among the show’s creative team.
Co-creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd weighed in on the subject in an interview with Deadline posted the same evening.
Though both executive producers weren’t ready to move forward with a spin-off, they though Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet’s couple seemed the most likely to work on its own.
Just an idea: Modern Family co-creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd said they were considering a spin-off for Cameron (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Mitchell (Eric Stonestreet), according to Deadline
The two were asked about Mitchell (Ferguson) and Cameron (Stonestreet) moving to Missouri at the end of the series, and whether that gave them an opportunity for their own show.
‘I’m personally not thinking about that,’ Levitan said, after rejecting the idea that Cameron and Mitchell had long been considered for a spin-off.
But even if Levitan wasn’t on that beat, other Modern Family writers were.
‘I think that there are a couple of writers who are thinking about well, is there a Mitch and Cam spinoff, but they’re literally just thinking about it. They’re using this time that we have now to think about it, if there’s something there.’
That’s all, folks: Modern Family ended its eleventh and final season Wednesday night with Mitchell and Cameron moving to Missouri to be closer to Cameron’s family
Taking time off: ‘I’m personally not thinking about that,’ Levitan said of a Mitchell and Cameron spin-off, though he said the show’s writers were considering the idea
‘I’m not driving this but I’m a huge fan of Jesse and Eric, and those characters are of course near and dear to me, and I certainly think that they’re strong enough to carry a show,’ he continued.
Even if he was interested in their spin-off, Levitan had trouble concentrating on the same batch of characters.
“For me, I really felt that what I needed creatively was to work on something new after working on Modern Family for 12 years and pretty much exclusively.’
Lloyd also seemed to be a fan of a possibly Mitchell and Cameron series, and he explained the choice to have the married couple moved to Missouri at the end of the show.
Levitan (L) and Lloyd (R) were both cautious about the possibility of a spin-off, though they were in agreement that Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet would be the best candidates
‘We wanted to have them off on a new journey, and it seemed symmetrical to have Mitchell follow Cam some place and maybe be around Cam’s family because Cam had played that role in Mitchell’s life for the last 11 years.
‘Cam had this opportunity to do something wonderful and exciting, Mitchell felt okay, that makes my obligation to let him chase his dream, and I will go with him and see what that life is like for me,’ he said.
Though he was pleas with the idea of a Mitchell and Cameron spin-off, Lloyd was as cautious as his partner.
‘Will that happen? I’m not sure but we would be probably dumb to not explore it. However, doing a spinoff is fraught in a lot of ways and we won’t do it unless we feel confident there’s something there, I don’t want to say it’s a long shot, it’s under discussion but we’ll see. We don’t want to jump into something like that, particularly because Modern Family is a tough act to follow, but that is a possibility,’ he said.
On the brain: ‘We would be probably dumb to not explore it,’ Lloyd said of a potential spin-off. Ferguson and Stonestreet have been on the series since the beginning as a gay couple that adopted a child and later got married
Astounding: Modern family ran from 2009 to 2020 and earned 22 Emmy awards from 75 nominations
Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet play Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker, a gay couple who adopt a daughter at the beginning of the series and later get married.
Mitchell was the son of series patriarch Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill) and the brother of Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen).
Stonestreet won two Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a comedy series, Ferguson was nominated for the same award five times.