Netflix officially strikes a deal with Fox to bring us new episodes of Arrested Development

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Maybe you don’t want to cancel Netflix after all? The company, which had a spate of bad press this year, has signed a deal with 20th Century Fox Television to launch new episodes of “Arrested Development” in early 2013.

Mitch Hurwitz, creator of “Development,” announced last month that a new limited-run TV series would segue into the long-awaited film project and there was much speculation about how the series would be presented. Both Fox and FX seemed to be out, despite owning the rights to the series. A few suitors came calling, including Netflix, Hulu and Showtime, but eventually Netflix realized they could use a little good will and plunked down enough cash to win the rights.

So how do they plan to resuscitate a TV series that featured a number of actors who’ve moved on to successful careers elsewhere in TV and film? While this hasn’t been confirmed, the hot rumor is that each episode would follow one specific person in the Bluth family. So stars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett or Michael Cera, would only have to film one episode, instead of a multiple-episode arc over the season. The film would then reunite the enter cast back together.

But what of that movie? A source told Variety that it’s currently in development at Fox Searchlight but when reached for comment, they claimed it wasn’t an active project. But perhaps, if the plan is to shoot the film after the series airs, it’s just too far off to be active at the studio.