Monty Python reunion to be simulcast in about 2,000 theaters worldwide

Monty Python is not dead yet.

As you may already know, the five remaining members of the beloved comedy group — John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin — are set to reunite this summer for their first performance together in 34 years. (The sixth Python, Graham Chapman, died of cancer in 1989.) The Pythons will take the stage of London’s O2 Arena on July 1-5, 15-16, and 18-20. This news was exciting but bittersweet for legions of fans, since getting a ticket to these shows is about as difficult as determining the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow; the O2 says every seat for Python’s first reunion performance was snatched up in a record 43.5 seconds.

But don’t go crying into your coconut shells! Picturehouse Entertainment revealed Thursday that it will broadcast the group’s final live performance simultaneously to 450 movie theaters in the United Kingdom — as well as 1,500 additional venues globally.

“Thanks to the wonderful invention of moving pictures, The Last Night of Monty Python is coming to a cinema near you,” the Pythons said in a statement. “Get your knotted handkerchiefs out and warm your brains one last time at any one of 450 cinemas across the UK, and 1,500 across the world. Join the crowd live from London’s O2 in a final weepy, hilarious, uproarious, outrageous farewell to the five remaining Pythons as they head for The Old Jokes Home … on the big screen, in HD.”

Sounds like something completely different.