E! Online is reporting that a deal has been confirmed to bring the critically acclaimed but short-lived Fox series Arrested Development to the big screen.
Reliable inside sources confirm that producers Mitch Hurwitz and Ron Howard have signed deals to do an Arrested movie with Imagine and Fox Searchlight. The budget for the film will be $15 million. According to the report, all of the cast members will be in it except for one un-named holdout.
If this report is true, it will be welcome news for fans of the series, which was cancelled in 2006.
The show started out being about (at least nominally) a man trying to keep his eccentric family together. By the series finale, he had finally, completely given up on his entire family, except his son. Without that son, Michael doesn’t have a purpose, and the movie doesn’t have a heart.
Michael Cera should do it, but play the character somehow completely differently than his standard George Michael schtick. (Any of a number of plot devices could make sense out of this.) That would be hilarious.
I’d always heard that Michael Cera was very much into the idea of doing an AD movie.
My guess is David Cross. He’s kind of a malcontent from what I’ve heard, and didn’t even want to do a TV show the first time around. He was only supposed to be in the pilot but got talked into staying on.
But Cross was the most vocal cast member calling out the general public for watching shit shows instead of watching the supposedly much better AD. I’d think he’d be very gung ho about the movie.
Personally, while I’m interested to see where they go with the movie, the end of season two and what little of season three left me cold and I still haven’t seen all of the episodes or even the finale.
My opinion of this kid will complete its 180 if he kills this project. From loving him in AD, to wondering why he played the same character in Superbad, to seeing him in other stuff and realizing that he’s not acting - he’s just an idiot, to hating him for nixing what could be an awesome movie. I hope if he refuses they just make it without him and it’s a huge hit.