Six months after teasing MTV with news that an "Arrested Development" movie was in the very earliest of stages, "Hancock" star Jason Bateman told an assembled crowd Tuesday night that the Bluths were almost certainly heading to the big screen — and boy will it be strange.
"It's typically bent and twisted," Bateman said of the story concocted by series mastermind Mitchell Hurwitz. "He's got a really, really good idea for the movie version that would not be just simply the equivalent of four episodes back to back to back. It's actually something that would be specific to the medium of film."
A bent and twisted script is exactly what devoted fans of the series would hope for and expect. After all, "Arrested Development," which was canceled in February 2006, introduced such topics as the Never Nude, the puppet Franklin Delano Bluth, and "a family friend with only one arm!"
Bateman smiled. "Who thinks up that [stuff]?"
So what's the holdup? Not Bateman, certainly. And not anyone else actually involved in the show, he insisted. It's the Bluths' biggest problem that threatens to delay the film indefinitely: money.
"We all want to do it. All the actors want to do it, the writers want to do it, and the boss wants to do it. And they are working on making a deal, probably as we speak," Bateman said. "But it's a long, sort of drawn-out, complicated business process. 'Arrested Development' is such a specific tone, it doesn't lend itself to mass appeal, as played out by the fact that it's canceled. So it has to be done for a price. They can't spend the money they spent on 'Hancock.'
"So they have to shoot it for a small price, and we have to figure out if we can do it for that price," he continued. "They're working it out, and hopefully we'll be able to know something in the next month."
In the meantime, keep the series alive, Bateman said — even if you do it by accosting him in the streets.
"When people come up to me [to talk about 'Arrested Development'], I'm right there with 'em," he laughed. "There's some narcissism in it!"
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