Netflix confirmed production on September 7, turning months of reunion reports into something concrete. Simon Bird returns as Will McKenzie, James Buckley as Jay Cartwright, Blake Harrison as Neil Sutherland and Joe Thomas as Simon Cooper.

The creative continuity is just as important. Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, who created The Inbetweeners, are returning to write and direct the movie rather than merely lending their names to a revival built by a new team.

The announcement starts with a car that should have died years ago

Netflix’s production teaser avoids explaining the plot. Instead, a garage opens, four men walk toward Simon’s familiar yellow Fiat Cinquecento and climb inside. The red door is still there.

The engine refuses to start.

Eventually Simon gets the car moving, and a number three can be seen written into the dirt on the rear window. It is an appropriately low-budget visual joke for a series that rarely needed anything more elaborate than four terrible decisions happening at once.

The characters have changed even if the basic ingredients have not

The original sitcom ran from 2008 to 2010, following four school friends whose attempts at parties, relationships and social status generally collapsed within minutes. Two movies carried them beyond school.

The first, released in 2011, took the group to Crete and became a major UK box-office success. Netflix says it set the record at the time for the biggest opening weekend for a British comedy. A second movie followed in 2014 and moved the chaos to Australia.

Twelve years later, simply repeating that formula is a much stranger proposition.

Being older is the actual story problem

The comedy originally benefited from the fact that these characters were teenagers. Their arrogance and astonishing lack of self-awareness were constantly undermined by their age, inexperience and complete inability to behave like the adults they imagined themselves to be.

That excuse gets thinner when the characters themselves are middle-aged.

A third movie therefore has an obvious challenge before anyone even reveals the plot: how much of Jay’s mythology, Will’s indignation, Neil’s vacant optimism and Simon’s panic can survive adulthood without the film pretending no time has passed?

The teaser seems aware of the problem. It does not digitally restore the gang to 2010. It puts the older versions of them into an object from their teenage years and lets the awkwardness do the work.

Netflix has not revealed the rest of the reunion yet

No story details have been announced, and Netflix has not confirmed whether other familiar characters will return. Emily Atack’s Charlotte Hinchcliffe and Emily Head’s Carli D’Amato are among the notable names currently absent from the announced cast.

Claire Jones is producing alongside Banijay’s Patrick Holland and Fudge Park Productions’ Mark Lesbirel. Netflix has not announced a release date for The Inbetweeners 3.