**Update: **More good news! Though Netflix has yet to officially make a decision on the number, Mitch Hurwitz has enough material to begin assembling more episodes beyond the original order of ten for the streaming season 4. A break in production is now planned so he can decide what new scripts need to be generated and then filming will resume around the busy cast's schedules in late January. We could be getting anywhere from 12-15 episodes! Steve Holt!
Though it's painful to say so, Arrested Development isn't a movie property. Two and a half seasons of high quality TV comedy, yes, actual movie, no.
Despite this, what limited coverage of AD's return that's appeared on empireonline.com has made many forumites / Facebook fans / Twitter followers very happy indeed, so it's with great pride that we share this snippet of news from the Bluth family's resident Analrapist, Tobias Fünke.
Speaking to The Rolling Stone from the set of the resurrected cult favourite, David Cross was asked whether the 10-episode plan with Netflix was still going strong.
"I think it's going to be 13 episodes, not 10," was his response. "There's too much story. Some characters will have two-parters. Everybody sort of participates, sometimes in a bigger way and sometimes in a tiny little thread that goes through everybody else's stories."
Rumours so far indicate that each of the new episodes will centre around one of the family Bluth, which Cross's quote ratifies, but there's no news on who's deemed worthy of their own particular outing. In other words, Annyong fans might want to get back into the wallspace for the time being.
The Rolling Stone interview has much more teasing info for you to enjoy, but one other quote is particularly smile-enducing:
"[Show creator Mitchell Hurwitz's writing is] really audacious and amazing. I think a lot of people will miss the work that is involved, the story, the Venn diagrams that are being created, the domino effect that characters have with each other in their various episodes. I know what he's doing, and this has never been done on a TV show like this. This makes Lost look like a Spaulding Grey monologue."
Elsewhere, Ron Howard - the best narrator this side of Scandalmakers - has been tweeting pictures from somewhere near the banana stand, and here's just one below to give you a taste, with the Rush director standing beside creator Mitchell Hurwitz and star Jason Bateman.
The new Netflix episodes of Arrested Development are set to air in early 2013, with no precise dates announced as yet.