Fans of FOX’s Arrested Development sitcom have been on a roller coaster ride for well over a year. Is the movie happening or isn’t it?
Arrested Development follows the dysfunctional Bluth family and features the talents of actors Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, Tony Hale, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, John F. Beard, and Mae Whitman. Despite critical acclaim, the series never caught on with a big audience.
Almost immediately following the show’s cancellation, rumors of a reunion movie started to surface. The project started to pick up steam in late 2008. Supposedly, series creator Mitch Hurwitz got a greenlight and the cast all said they’d like to do it. That was more than a year ago and there’s been little word since.
Last week, Cross told TV Squad that he thought the long-awaited project was dead. He said, “Way too much time it’s been… I mean, there’s so many people involved. Everyone’s doing their own thing, you know. And everybody’s aged. It’s just not going to happen. I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say we’d love for it to happen, we’d love to work on it, but just I don’t think… not going to happen.”
 Loading ... |
Bateman disagrees. He told the LA Times, “David says that it’s dead, but it’s not dead at all.” As nice as that sounds, it doesn’t seem to be high on anyone’s priority list either.
Bateman confirmed that there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before it can happen. He said, “Mitch Hurwitz is busy shooting a new pilot with Will Arnett, and perhaps when they’re done shooting and editing and he’s delivered that, perhaps he’ll jump into writing the script. Once the script is done, it goes to the studio and they decide if it’s a script they want to make, and the actors will decide if they want to be in it.”
“It’s a long process. But it could happen and it’s still in everybody’s plans for it to happen.”
What do you think? Will the Arrested Development movie ever be made? At this point, will enough people care?
Personally, I love Arrested Development. But I think the main reason the show never caught on was because you couldn’t pick up from any episode and get it, which is something you’d expect from a drama but certainly not from a sitcom.
Considering the resurgence Arrested created for the careers of Bateman, Tambor, and the big breakthrough the show led to for Arnett, Cera, Cross and de Rossi, there may be a small sentiment amongst the cast that they “owe” a movie to Hurwitz and the fans. However I believe this will outweigh the risk in the end, as any theatrical version is likely to draw little interest from anyone but the most devoted of Arrested Development fans. Furthermore, actors do not want to sidetrack themselves when they are as sought after as many of the cast has become, and for this… Read more »
i agree best written tv show bar none!
Arrested Development is by far the best thing that ever happened to television. Unfortunately, its comedy is of such a high quality that dim-witted audiences were not able to understand its brilliance. The fact that the show is even being discussed in major publications years after its cancellations is a token to its greatness. I certainly think that a movie would be fantastic, but only if it remained true to the essence of the show – no cheap ploys to sell tickets – make this for the fans.