Fire up the stairmobile and prepare to do the chicken dance for joy! Arrested Development is officially back. But not on the big screen just yet: the TV show has been resurrected by streaming video service Netflix.
It’s not yet known how many episodes 20th Century Fox Television will produce, but we do know it should be available in early 2013. Hopefully by then, Netflix will be fully established over here and we won’t have to wait long for it. But either way, you know it’ll make it over.
The show, which chronicles the insane exploits of the Bluth family, stars Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Will Arnett, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter and many others. Oh, and executive producer Ron Howard narrated the whole thing.
As to how many of the leads will be back – most of them are fairly busy on other projects these days – is an issue that will have to wait for contract negotiations and schedule juggling. But keep your fingers crossed that everyone agrees.
Howard, at least, seems keen: “After a long hiatus, I’m dying to finally get back to the narrator’s microphone,” he said in a statement picked up by Entertainment Weekly. “Of all the projects we’ve been involved with over the years, we probably get more questions about Mitch Hurtwitz’s brilliant Arrested Development than any other — everyone, ourselves included, seems to feel like the Bluths left the party a bit too soon. Bringing a series back from cancellation almost never happens, but then, Arrested always was about as unconventional as they get, so it seems totally appropriate that this show that broke the mold is smashing it to pieces once again.”
Netflix, which has gradually become a producer as well as a content provider, already has one high-profile project bubbling away, having stolen the Kevin Spacey-spearheaded US remake of House Of Cards from under the noses of Showtime and HBO.
As for Development, if you have no idea what we’re on about, correct that immediately, then report back here to tell us how sorry you are you didn’t watch it before….