‘Arrested Development’ Movie (Before Season 5) Appears To Be Creator’s Real Goal

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz really wants to move forward with a movie. That is becoming clearer and clearer with each interview the man gives. Netflix appears to want to move forward wi...
‘Arrested Development’ Movie (Before Season 5) Appears To Be Creator’s Real Goal
Written by Chris Crum

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz really wants to move forward with a movie. That is becoming clearer and clearer with each interview the man gives.

Netflix appears to want to move forward with more Arrested Development regardless of what format it takes, and Hurwitz has indicated that he wants to do a movie next on more than one occasion.

He spoke with Empire for about a half hour on a podcast indicating that everyone (himself, the cast and Netflix) want to do a movie, but Fox, which still owns the property it cancelled years ago, is holding it up. Hurwitz is hoping Fox can be convinced to let it get moving.

Arrested Development movie rumors are nothing new. They have been coming and going for years, since way before Netflix ever picked the show up. Hurwitz spoke with The Guardian about his old plans for the movie:

Speaking of working within constraints, you had to work with each actor separately as their schedules were so packed. In an ideal world, how would you have preferred to do the fourth series?

I actually would have preferred to do the movie. What happened was, by the time I sat down to do the movie, a lot of years had passed and I had a lot of story and so I sat down with Ron Howard. But we could barely get anyone to let us do this movie, it was very hard to get anyone interested in it. The prevailing belief was, the show was cancelled, why would you do a movie? But I had this anecdotal evidence that people were watching the show, but it was totally anecdotal – and of course I’d think people were watching the show.

Even Ron Howard couldn’t get someone to greenlight a movie?

You’d think, but that’s the movie business. So we sat down and he said: “OK, what are you thinking?” And I said: “It needs to be a trilogy.” And he put his head in his hands and said: “I don’t think they’ll do that. How about if you make the first one and then we’ll see.” And I said: “But people then will be disappointed, I want them to know we’ll resolve the story so I want it to be a trilogy.” And he said, “It’s not going to happen.” So I went back to work and it became clear that even if I just spent a little time with each character, there wouldn’t be time in a single movie … So the idea that emerged was this anthology show, one character at a time, completely separate, just little webisodes. Then from there, I started being more ambitious and it became about how they all affect each other. Every problem that arises in the lives of the Bluths was started by another Bluth. It’s completely self-generated. There’s no exterior incident – everything is their fault.

But Hurwitz’ plans for a movie aren’t just old plans. Reiterating his comments from other recent interviews, he told the Guardian, “I hope so,” when asked if he’s doing a movie now.

The fourth season of Arrested Development has already been nominated for three Emmys.

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