Arrested Development Returns?

A	Yes! The actors and creators have shown dedication to this idea and they're going to make it happen.

B	No, even with everyone on board, the lack of progress on the business side shows how unlikely the project is.

At the New Yorker Festival on Sunday, the whole cast of Arrested Development got together for the first time since the show's wrap party in 2005. Co-creator and executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz shared plans for a pending film and short run of television episodes.

"We’re basically hoping to do nine or 10 episodes with almost one character per episode...We’ll do this kind of thing that builds the peril in their lives until they all come together, really, in the first scene of the movie." Each TV episode would cover an individual character's journey over the past five years and lead up to the film, which would bring the family together. The episodes and movie would come out in early 2013.

Hurwitz was careful to explain that the process will require working with various studios and property holders. Fox aired the original series but have not committed to producing or showing the new limited season, but Netflix and Showtime have expressed interest in the project.

The announcement comes as the most recent, if not the most definitive, rumor that has come and gone since 2008 about a potential AD film. NPR collected articles and statements about a hypothetical AD movie since that time and concluded that "As hard as it is to hear, if there are no "film companies on board" yet, then "announcement" and "confirmation" are not the right words, and there's no deal."

The NPR opinion piece argues that Sunday's announcement is just the latest reiteration of what the actors and creators have said since the rumor began in 2008. "The fact that they've been confirming it for three years could be taken by an optimist to mean they're pretty determined not to let it go and are stubbornly insisting on eventually getting it done," but the fact that there's no progress on the production means "There aren't any episodes if nobody has agreed to air them. There isn't any movie if nobody has agreed to finance one."

Do you think this latest news is a step closer to Arrested Development's resurrection, or it is the same unsubstantiated wishful thinking we've been hearing about for three years?

Eleanor Brown

Arrested Development Returns?

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