With an entire new season of Arrested Development premiering on Netflix in just a few months, you'd think that the Bluth faithful would be satisfied with that. But noooooo, we keep having to ask for the movie that creator Mitch Hurwitz has been talking about for years, and which could theoretically follow up whatever we learn about the family in the new season. Is the Arrested Development still possible? Sure. Should you keep harping on it? Eh, probably not.
Speaking at a SXSW panel about the upcoming Arrested Development season, coming to Netflix in May, Hurwitz said that "we very much want to do [a movie]," but that the focus ought to be entirely on the series for now. "We have nothing else right now," he said, before giving the familiar explanation of why they turned the story they developed into a series instead of a movie to begin with. Here's the highlight, via Indiewire:
What emerged was this anthology series, and it's evolved since then, but the original idea was that we'd do George Sr.'s episode, we'd do Michael's episode, we'd do Gob's episode. And all of this was to be act one of this bigger story that we have, in a lot of detail, actually, for the movie. What we don't have is a movie deal. Know anybody? [laughter] I'm confident that we will succeed at that. It's not our property. 20th Century Fox owns it and they've been amazing. They let us bring it back, which is outside their normal business model -- these companies exist to make 100 episodes, not to make 10 episodes or, in our case, 14.
Will Arnett, also sitting in on the panel, then chimed in: "We do have these 14 episodes that are about to air, and people are already mad that we don't have the other -- nobody's even seen these. Let's just enjoy this for now."
Reading between the lines a bit, it sounds like Hurwitz and everyone else wants to wait and see how the new episodes are received before pushing forward on the movie-- a smart strategy not just for business, but for creators who are presenting a product that fans have been demanding for nearly a decade. What if the new episodes don't live up to fan expectations? What if they set the story off in a direction we don't want to see? I know a lot of fans assume the show can do no wrong, but Hurwitz's TV efforts since Arrested ended-- Running Wilde and Sit Down Shut Up-- haven't been nearly as well-received. It may sound like Hurwitz is just trying to deprive us of more Bluths, but for now he seems pretty smart for hedging his bets.
