‘Arrested Development’ Update: Production Could Begin Early Next Year
It’s the question that “Arrested Development” creator Mitch Hurwitz gets wherever he goes: When will we see a Season 5 of the cult fave comedy?
Hurwitz told reporters Wednesday that a new season is finally in sight: “We’re very close,” he said during Netflix‘s day at the Television Critics Assn. press tour. Production could begin as soon as early 2017. “It’s what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said.
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Several stories have already been broken and are ready to go. But just like last season (which premiered back in 2013), it’s up to figuring out how to work around the actors’ schedules.
“There’s a lot of people involved,” Hurwitz told IndieWire. “The actors, the writers, 20th Century Fox TV, Netflix. Everyone really wants to do it. I feel like in some ways we have been caught between the old and the new models. We’re a studio show where still the model was produce 22 episodes a year, and then that changed. Studios are figuring out how they’re going to work with Netflix and vice versa. And it’s a show that people have gone on, no one is available for a full year anymore. That’s another thing that changed. They’ll do 10 episodes here and a movie there. I can’t wait to do it. And once we get it up and running it’s going to be a total joy. Everything comes together.”
READ MORE: ‘Arrested Development’ Season 5 to be a ‘Serialized Murder Mystery’
But in the years since “Arrested Development” moved to Netflix, the idea of actor exclusivity has become a bit more loose in the industry – and it’s much more common to find stars working on multiple projects at the same time. “Arrested’s” Will Arnett, for example, is the voice of Netflix’s “BoJack Horseman” and stars in the streaming service’s “Flaked.”
Per a conversation Hurwitz had with Deadline earlier this year: Given the popularity of real-crime documentaries like “Making a Murderer,” “The Jinx” and “Serial,” Hurwitz told the website that he hoped to frame Season 5 as a “serialized murder mystery.”
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