Hurwitz made the announcement at the New Yorker Festival this past weekend, and Arrested Development‘s Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) further confirmed the developments on Twitter. Writes Bateman: “It’s true. We will do 10 episodes and the movie. Probably shoot them all together next summer for a release in early ’13. VERY excited!”
Speaking at the ‘Bluth Family Reunion’ panel which included cast members Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, David Cross, Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor, Alia Shawkat, and Michael Cera, The New York Times reports Hurwitz revealed some new updates on the status of the Arrested Development film. “We’re trying to do a limited-run series into the movie,” said Hurwitz, adding, “We’re basically hoping to do nine or 10 episodes, with almost one character per episode.”
As to why it’s taken so long, Hurwitz explained, “We don’t completely own the property, there are business people involved and studios and that kind of thing. Just creatively, I have been working on the screenplay for a long time and found that as time went by, there was so much more to the story. In fact, where everyone’s been for five years became a big part of the story. So in working on the screenplay, I found even if I just gave five minutes per character to that back story, we were halfway through the movie before the characters got together.”
There’s no word yet on what network will air the limited run series or what studio will handle the feature film.
Posted by Rebecca Murray – October 3, 2011
