New Boss - Production

Production

I am much more courageous in real life with the parts I want to play. They don't often come my way. The Office is comedy. No one in a month of Sundays would invite me do comedy. So I love the fact that someone is out there looking and understanding that there might be more in this nutshell.

"New Boss" was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed by Paul Feig. Executive story editor Charlie Grandy conceived the idea of Michael leaving Dunder Mifflin. "New Boss" was the first of six episodes Idris Elba was set to guest star in as Charles, Michael's new Dunder Mifflin superior. It was his first role in a comedy and his first television appearance since leaving his regular role on HBO's The Wire, where he played the character Stringer Bell. Elba, a fan of The Office, said, "The creators of the show called me, said they wanted to put me in as this new character, that I’d be perfect for it, and I was honored, so I said yeah. I’m still playing the straight guy, but he’s kind of got a bit of a quirk to him." The writing staff for The Office are fans of The Wire, and have referred to the show in previous episodes. Of the six episodes Elba appeared in, he said "New Boss" was the only one he watched immediately after they aired because, "I'm hypercritical about my work, so I try not to torture myself." Elba is the second actor from The Wire to appear on The Office, after actress Amy Ryan, who played Michael's love interest Holly Flax. Paul Lieberstein, the Office producer who also plays Toby, said Elba's work on The Wire made him "a really interesting and great foil for Michael". John Krasinski said Elba was initially an intimidating presence on the set, due to the ruthless character he plays on The Wire. However, Krasinski said Elba proved to be "incredibly nice and incredibly funny".

The official The Office website included three cut scenes from "New Boss" within a week of the episode's original release. One clip includes Andy, Creed, Oscar and Meredith gossiping about Charles; Andy says, "I'm telling you, when corporate sends somebody it is big trouble, or really good news, and then again sometimes it just means business as usual." Another clip features Jim expressing his worries to Pam about Charles's apparent distaste for him, as Pam playfully makes fun of Jim. The video ends with Pam asking Jim to leave her workspace because, "I don't want him to keep seeing us together."

In what some reporters described as a continuity error, Charles Miner refers to Jim's second-in-command position as "made up", but the position is real and Jim was officially hired for it in the third season episode "Branch Closing". When asked by a fan about the apparent inconsistency, The Office writer Aaron Shure said he believed it was because "Charles is clearly not great at reading people and he's headstrong", and the fact that Jim does not normally care about titles, so he was not used to having to defend himself in such a way. However, Shure admitted he was "(trying) to wiggle out of this one" with his answer.