Today those fans can finally relax and begin to look forward to a new season of Arrested Development. Deadline Hollywood is reporting that production of the new Arrested Development episodes begins today. The entire cast of the show will be back, including Ron Howard as narrator. The new season will debut all at once sometime in 2013 on Netflix, though there is no exact release date yet.

The new season of Arrested Development will provide an update on what has been happening to the Bluth family since the end of the original series. Deadline reports that each of the 10 episodes of the new season will follow one member of the Bluth clan. Of course, the main cast of the series consists of only 9 characters. Who the 10th episode will feature is anyone’s guess. Could it be Oscar? Ann? Steve Holt? Annyong? My guess is that it will be a collaborative episode that leads into the movie.

When Arrested Development debuted on Fox in 2003, it received critical acclaim, but failed to garner significant ratings. Still, the series was able to limp along for three seasons thanks to the multiple Emmy Awards it received. The show’s popularity only really took off after it was cancelled. DVD sales of the show were substantial, and the series can now be found on nearly every streaming video service available, including Hulu and Netflix.

The previous entry in the series, 2008′s “The Dark Knight”, opened with $158 million in domestic ticket sales, which helped it to become one of the few films in existence to cross the $1 billion mark in worldwide sales. “Batman Begins”, meanwhile, opened with almost $50 million when it arrived in theaters back in 2005.

Of course, the $160 million is considered an estimate, since Warner Bros. and other major Hollywood studios have not yet released box office figures in consideration of last week’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado. According to the Los Angeles Times, these numbers come from anonymous industry insiders, and should not be considered fact until the company has confirmed the results. That being said, I’m sure the number isn’t too far off the mark.

Despite the tragedy at the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises”, people still turned out in droves to check out the flick. Kristina Hershey, manager of Entertainment Cinema in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, said attendance has been surprisingly brisk. “We’ve had a handful of customers ask if we’re checking the emergency doors,” she explained. “I don’t think it’s hindering a lot of people here from going to the movies.”

Overseas, business has been good, as well. The film enjoyed $80 million in ticket sales from 17 foreign markets, including the United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia. Next week, the movie will expand to 57 different territories, though Italy and China will have to wait a little longer for their opportunity to screen Batman’s latest adventure.

Paul Glantz, the chairman of Emagine Entertainment, seemed to think that most customers believe the Colorado shooting to be an isolated incident. “I think there was a perception among our guests that they weren’t going to allow the horrific act of one deranged individual stop them from living their lives.”

The business of film, like so many other things, is mostly dominated by males. A shockingly low number of women work behind the cameras, and that’s what Streep is calling on Hollywood to change; she even has the numbers to back it up. And in a time when huge box-office dominators are hit-or-miss–take “Battleship” vs. “The Avengers” for instance–one can look at several female-oriented films that have been released in the past few years which did amazingly well and see that the movie industry is missing out on some good opportunities.

While speaking at the 2012 Women In Film Crystal + Lucy Awards last week, Streep implored the people with the power to stop and take a second glance at what women are capable of.

“In this room, we are very familiar with these dreadful statistics that detail the shocking under-representation of women in our business,” she said. “[Women make up] 7-10% of directors, producers, writers, and cinematographers in any given year. This in spite of the fact that in the last five years, five little movies aimed at women have earned over $1.6bn: The Help, The Iron Lady (believe it or not), Bridesmaids, Mamma Mia! and The Devil Wears Prada. The Iron Lady…cost $14m to make it and brought in $114m. Pure profit! So why? Why? Don’t they want the money?”

Streep, who has been one of the most respected and sought-after actresses in the country for many years, may just be the one person who could get studio bigwigs to listen. She’s already gotten their attention after being quoted in the Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair; this could well be the preamble to women dominating the coming years in film .

A judgement summary provided by the High Court describes how the case began. The lawsuit was brought against the ISP, iiNet, when it ignored letters the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) sent them alleging that their subscribers were using Bit Torrent to pirate copyrighted material. The “AFACT notices” demanded that iiNet take action, but the ISP did nothing.

The lawyers for the studios argued that iiNet had authorized its users to infringe on the studio’s copyrighted material, which, under Australian law, would make them as guilty as the pirates themselves. The claim was that the ISP had the power to prevent subscribers from pirating by shutting down their accounts. The judges, however, rejected this notion, differentiating the ability to prevent piracy from a formal authorization of piracy. From the summary:

The Court observed that iiNet had no direct technical power to prevent its customers from using the BitTorrent system to infringe copyright in the appellants’ films. Rather, the extent of iiNet’s power to prevent its customers from infringing the appellants’ copyright was limited to an indirect power to terminate its contractual relationship with its customers. Further, the Court held that the information contained in the AFACT notices, as and when they were served, did not provide iiNet with a reasonable basis for sending warning notices to individual customers containing threats to suspend or terminate those customers’ accounts. For these reasons, the Court held that it could not be inferred from iiNet’s inactivity after receiving the AFACT notices that iiNet had authorised any act of infringement of copyright in the appellants’ films by its customers.

It will be interesting to see if this precedent, that ISP’s are not responsible for their customer’s actions over the ISP’s services, will influence decisions in other countries. Earlier this month a court in the U.S. rejected a similar plea from copyright holders to subpoena ISP’s to reveal their subscriber’s personal identity. It is also worth noting that not all ISP’s hold firm and go to court for their subscribers the way iiNet has. Many providers in the U.S. take letters such as the “AFACT notices” seriously, and threaten their paying subscribers with throttling or service termination.

What do you think? Has the High Court of Australia made the right decision, or is iiNet harboring pirates? Let me know in the comments section below.

(via The Sydney Morning Herald; photo courtesy of the High Court of Australia)

Although the company sports an impressive number of DVD titles in their expansive catalog — roughly 140,000, in case you were wondering — the streaming service currently offers around 60,000. Not a bad collection, mind you, but there is always room for improvement, particularly in the feature film category. Unfortunately for subscribers, these content issues aren’t likely to be resolved anytime soon.

Even as streaming becomes an increasingly popular way for individuals to consume cinema, Hollywood continues to refuse to license newer titles, including television shows, for use on the Netflix service. Studios feel that Netflix, as well as Redbox and their ilk, are cutting into their profits by offering their products at such a low price. This, they claim, prevents people from rushing out to the nearest retailer to purchase a copy. And while Blu-ray has certainly helped reverse this trend in recent years, packaged media just doesn’t have the strength it had during the heyday of the DVD.

Also concerned about Netflix devaluing their product are pay-TV channels such as HBO and Showtime. They feel that if their more popular offerings are made available at such a low price — it currently only costs $8 for a streaming account — cable subscribers will jump ship for cheaper vessels. As someone who dumped cable for Netflix, I can’t say that their fears are entirely unfounded.

Since Hollywood seems to think that Netflix is getting the better end of the deal, they’ve increased their licensing fees by astronomical amounts. When Starz offered up content back in 2008, Netflix paid only $30 million to make good use of it. However, when it came time to renew the contact, Starz demanded nearly $200 million for the same package. At first, CEO Reed Hastings seemed to be okay with the deal, though he soon changed his mind. His reasoning: Starz content only accounted for 8% of viewership, though many feel that he has underestimated the loss.

In order to distract customers from the lack of new material, Netflix has tinkered with their recommendation system, which takes advantage of the movies and television shows that are already available on the service. Now when you watch a title, dozens over similar choices pop up, giving you more options to choose from.

Streaming, in my humble opinion, is the wave of the future, which means that for Hollywood to survive in the new landscape, they will have to shuffle off the business model crafted during the days of VHS. Naturally, this is much easier said than done. However, when both parties come to some sort of agreement, the end result should be nothing short of impressive.