As a professional blogger, it’s hard to explain to normal people why reporting on Arrested Development news is so tiresome.  It’s not because I didn’t like the show — it’d be easy to hate on the fanatical fan base if it were a bad show, but it’s great — it’s just that these rumors have been going around for the better part of three years now, and at this point, I’d just as soon wait till the movie’s in the can to start talking about it.  But hey, sometimes we all do things we don’t want to for the money, otherwise truckers couldn’t lick whipped cream off your sister.  To the block quote!

Speaking at the press junket for When in Rome, Will Arnett confirmed that an Arrested Development feature film should go into production sometime this year.
“I’m so glad you asked that,” joked Arnett, who has been questioned about the series’ fate since it went off the air in 2006. “It’s very refreshing. We are working on the movie right now, yeah… We don’t have a completed script yet, but it’s forthcoming and we’re going to make the movie this year.”
When asked if he thought the cameras would actually roll before year’s end, Arnett seemed resolute.  “That’s the plan,” said the actor in earnest, before deadpanning, “We’re hoping once Jason Bateman gets out of rehab. I think that we’re going to start shooting.” [ComingSoon]

So there you have it!  Sandwiched between sarcasm and fantasy was the earnest pronouncement that an actor not involved in the writing or production says it’s going to shoot this year!  PLEASE HOLD THE FOOTBALL SO THAT I MIGHT KICK THE F*CK OUT OF IT!

I apologize in advance for not being excited to report this story — I loved the show, I really did — it’s just that a lot of sites spent an entire year running ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT MOVIE??!? stories every other day, which usually consisted of them seeing Alia Shawkat on the street and yelling, “Hey Alia, is there going to be an Arrested Development movie??!”  She’d shrug, and they’d run STAR MAY BE ONBOARD FOR ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT MOVIE!! the next morning.  Some people even made a documentary about how the show was good.  Who the hell wants to see that?  I watched the show. I liked the show.  What’s the documentary going to be about, you ruining it for me?  Okay, tirade over.  AD creator Mitchell Hurwitz has begun writing the script, which he’s set to direct.

“Arrested Development” creator Mitchell Hurwitz [HURRRRwitz -Ed] and his co-executive producer James Vallely are working on a screenplay for the long-debated feature version of their short-lived Fox series. Even as they prep a new Fox comedy series with “Arrested” star Will Arnett, the writers are spinning more bizarre encounters for the eccentric, spoiled Bluth clan for possible feature production in the spring.

Hurwitz had said that he wouldn’t start writing a film unless all the main actors were committed. Hurwitz and Vallely are now forging ahead. Scheduling might be difficult, however, as several — Bateman, Cera and Arnett — have seen their careers bloom in TV and film since the series debuted in 2003. [THR]

Oh my gosh, someone started writing a script?  HOLD THE F-CKING PHONE, SO THAT I MIGHT SHOUT OBSCENITIES INTO IT.

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Just like every other douchebag, I loved Arrested Development.  I don’t necessarily think it needs to be a movie, but that doesn’t matter, because the headline “Arrested Development Movie??” has been propping up struggling movie blog traffic for years now.  Now EOnline is reporting that Michael Cera, long rumored to be the final holdout in the cast, has signed on.

According to insiders, the movie may go as early as the end of the year, if they can put it together in time. I’m told Mitchell Hurwitz is writing and directing the script, and Fox Searchlight is the studio.

Last we heard from Cera himself, he implied he wasn’t holding out, just waiting for a script.  I actually liked that idea.  I know everyone’s all “Michael Cera’s a dick! Stop holding out like a dick, you dick!”, but me, I just don’t think “Sure, I’ll sign on, but only if you promise to rush the shit out of the script and direct it like wild dogs are chasing you,” is the right message to send either.

I haven’t been covering Michael-Cera-is-the-lone-holdout-for-the-Arrested-Development-movie gate much here, probably because I prefer stories that are interesting and/or factual.  Nonetheless, MTV recently caught up with Cera at Sundance and finally had a chance to ask him about it.  Cera says nothing is written at this point and that the movie is “more hypothetical than people think” – kind of like my pants.  He doesn’t say anything about being a holdout, just that he’s still waiting to see a script.  What an asshole!

I broke my own rules this week when I reported on Jeffrey Tambor and later Ron Howard saying the Arrested Development movie was go for launch.  As positive as they sounded, Jeffrey Tambor is an actor and Ron Howard is a former child actor, so between them they have all the credibility of a schizophrenic crack whore. However, The Hollywood Reporter is now reporting that both Howard and director Mitch Hurwitz have reached deals with Imagine and Fox Searchlight, so it’s with a fair degree of certainty that we can say an Arrested Development movie will happen.

Now, let us never speak of this again.  At least until a trailer comes out, at which point our avatars can have a heated discussion about how they took a good show and bukkake’d all over its corpse, and their families should all be raped to death by syphilitic hyenas.  This is an outrage!  What will I do with these Handi-Snacks now that I’ve lost my appetite?