Arrested Development was one of the most creative and intelligent comedies on television. The writing was brilliant and it had strong characters played by amazing comedic actors. The stories were very smart. The actors performed at the top of their game episode after episode. The show was not a lowbrow, dick and fart joke type of comedy. But it also wasn’t this snotty, upper class, uber intelligent show either. It had a nice center. One of the finest comedy series that’s been on television for a long time. Sadly, it was cancelled too soon. The show received praise from critics just about everywhere. It was nominated for 38 different awards, winning two, including a Golden Globe for best performance in a TV series. The ratings, however, were not good enough to keep the show running. Advertisers backed off and the network pulled the plug. There is still a strong fan following for the show. The fans are hoping to see more from the Bluth family. And recently, we’ve heard a lot of buzz about Arrested returning in the form of a major motion picture.
It seemed that about a month ago, everyone involved with the original series, wanted to get back together to make a movie for the fans. The cast of the show features some of the finer comedic actors around. It featured Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Tony Hale, Jeffrey Tambor and Portia de Rossi. Each episode featured narration by Ron Howard. Despite the fact that some of the stars of the show went on to bigger things, everyone wanted to do this. I can understand this completely. I watched every episode of the show, and it seemed as though the actors were enjoying themselves. They had such great chemistry. You just can’t get that unless everyone enjoyed what they were doing. Even though the budget for the film would inevitably be small, it could still be done because no one had gotten so big headed that they would demand a high salary. This is a project of love.
The folks at Fox Searchlight struck a deal to bring Arrested back, and then the rumor mill really began churning. One story that came out featured Mitch Hurwitz, the creator of the series and the writer/director of the proposed movie, discussing the possible plot lines for an Arrested Development movie. But he waffled a bit, not really revealing anything. First he mentioned that the movie would pick up where the series left off. That way, they could give a brief recap of the series, possibly in an animated sequence. But Hurwitz also stated that they also considered making the movie a prequel to the series.
So it seemed all the pieces were in place. All of the actors seemed genuinely excited to return to their roles as members of the dysfunctional Bluth family. Nothing could stop the movie now, right? Well, apparently trouble is brewing. There were various stories that came out over the last couple of weeks stating that two of the stars of the series, Will Arnett and Michael Cera, did not want to reprise their roles. Mitch Hurwitz spoke to Fancast about the possibility of an Arrested film, and he specifically addressed this story. Kind of.
“I don’t want to talk about who is holding out right now because we might still work that out and I don’t want to pressure anyone through the press…Although I will say that Will Arnett is gung-ho, so there’s a big clue!”
To read the rest of the interview in it’s entirety, click here. This quote surprises me. Michael Cera is the one holding out? I would’ve thought that Arnett would be the one holding out if given the choice of one or the other. Cera always seemed to me like he was polite, well mannered and respectful. So I would think, if he was asked by his former cast mates to do the role, he would thankfully accept. I mean, he did get a really big break on the show. Anyone think Cera would’ve gotten Superbad if he never appeared in Arrested Development? I don’t think anyone would have heard of him. Certainly, Arrested was the place where he honed his skills and learned to play the nervous geek so well.
Granted, this may be nothing. But it may be a warning sign. Hopefully, Cera changes his mind and they get to work on the film. It would be nice to see a comedy come out that is intelligent, cerebral and hilarious all at the same time. In an age where comedies like Zack and Miri make a porno, Sex Drive and Superbad are the “it” type of comedies, it would be nice to see something completely different. The show was worthy of a better send off than it got, and this would be a perfect way to do it. What do you think?