ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Season 4 is Act One of the Movie!
The fourth season of Arrested Development is currently shooting, and it's hard to convey the incredible excitement and anticipation that I feel. I honestly can't believe it's happening, but it is! And in the near future we'll all be able login to our Netflix accounts, sit back and enjoy all ten episodes at once!
In a recent interview between Vulture and the show's creator Mitch Hurwitz it was revealed that these ten episode will serve as the first act of a movie that everyone wants to do. When asked if this fourth season would be a farewell to the characters or the beginning of a new chapter he said,
The episodes are an outgrowth of the design of what we hope will be the movie. They precede it. They function as an act one of a movie that we all want to do, but haven't "sold" yet. The episodes take the audience through the experiences of the characters since the family "fell apart" and how they're brought together to deal with their new problems. I would give you a hint as to what those problems are, but, really, why rob the fans of being disappointed when they see it on Netflix.
I don't see why a movie wouldn't happen! I would be shocked and disapointed with the Hollywood system... more than I already am. Hurwitz went on to talk about a few other things saying,
Because of the nature of the new series — it's almost an anthology version of the show with each episode focusing on a particular character and where they've been since the family fell apart six years ago — we didn't really have many of our principal characters together until the twelfth or thirteenth day of shooting.
We also previously heard that there might end up being more than ten episodes in the season, when asked about that he said,
Our initial order is for ten, but the beauty of Netflix is that we theoretically have an opportunity to provide more material for them. We're definitely shooting some special material just for them. But their whole outlook completely mirrors the ambitions of this show. [Netflix chief content officer] Ted Sarandos and I have really spent a lot of time finding the ideal way to tailor the show to their platform and I think we have something that embraces the new medium. When we did the show the first time we were just out ahead of the technology. I was doing a show that was all about re-watchability before there was technology that really provided that opportunity — before DVRs, etc. In fact, the first season we didn't know for sure if they would release us on DVD. So in retrospect it was more than audacious, it was "foolish." But this time we're going to be way out in front of the next trend, unless, and this is a longshot, it ends up being "reading it off paper."
Then there's the fact that this time around the creative team isn't really held back by any network standards. They can bascially do whatever they want with the show and not worry about cutting loose and getting crazy if they want to. When asked about this, and if the show would contain cussing or have dirty jokes he explained,
No, we're doing it as tastefully tasteless as we always have I guess. And there are still standards you can't violate. For instance I can't say "Joe Adalian is a (SENTENCES OMITTED)" unless I can actually prove what you and I both know I know.
It's good to know they will still be keeping that same kind of "tastefully tasteless" humor. It's going to be a glorious day when season four is available to watch! Now all they need is a studio to back the movie up!
To read the rest of the interview head on over to Vulture.