The stars of Arrested Development have been heard, and a new development has been made regarding their compensation for additional episodes of the series. The controversy arose when the "remixed" version of the series' fourth season was released on Netflix. As part of the move to usher the series towards syndication, the original episode count of Season 4 went from 15 episodes to 22. You may see where the problem lies.
Thanks to the re-edit and the inclusion of previously unused footage, the cast ended up in more episodes of Arrested Development, and they were not paid for appearing in them. Following the Screen Actors Guild's involvement and the studio's change of heart, THR reports that the pay dispute has been resolved with the ensemble receiving the compensation they requested. In a nutshell, the actors will be paid for appearing in the seven additional episodes that comprised the remixed version of Season 4.
While the situation is confusing pay structure-wise, it does offer a unique peek into the ever-evolving world of television. The way consumers have come to watch TV has been changing for a while. With that, the sticky issue of how to compensate the cast of series whose show's creative ideas can shuffle and extend becomes an potential problem. All of which follows suit with the deals that had to be made for streaming and rerun residuals not too long ago.
Whether Arrested Development has set a trend that will be followed by other series will be interesting to watch. With many shows coming up just shy of the episode count wanted for syndication, it makes sense that other studios would follow 20th Century Fox's lead and see what could be done to inflate their series' episode count. One valuable lesson learned from the situation is how the cast may respond to the changes. The situation with the Arrested Development cast sets a standard moving forward.
Remixing Season 4 is not the only trick Arrested Development has up its sleeve. Netflix will be holding back the second half of the series' fifth season until later this year. Season 5 is comprised of 16 episodes, the first eight of which will premiere later this month and the second half later this year.
The first half of Arrested Development Season 5 will premiere on Netflix on Tuesday, May 29 at 12:01 a.m. PT. For the other TV content set to arrive on the streaming platform, peruse our guide to all of the new and returning shows via our 2018 premiere rundown. If you're curious about Amazon Prime, we have you covered there as well! Check out our guide to the streaming platform's schedule to learn what new and returning TV content is set to premiere on Netflix's rival and when. Our summer TV premiere guide is definitely worth a look as well.
