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Arrested Development is returning with its full cast for a fifth season next year, Netflix confirmed today.
The news comes just a couple of days after Jason Bateman announced on Twitter that he had signed on for a fifth season. Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, David Cross and Alia Shawkat will also reprise their roles as members of the dysfunctional Bluth family.
Creator Mitch Hurwitz has been adamant the show would get a fifth season since the fourth season made its debut on Netflix in 2013. In a press release, Hurwitz joked about the return of his fictional family, comparing it to another popular group of people in the news today.
“In talks with Netflix we all felt that stories about a narcissistic, erratically behaving family in the building business — and their desperate abuses of power — are really underrepresented on TV these days,” Hurwitz said. “I am so grateful to them and to 20th TV for making this dream of mine come true in bringing the Bluths, George Sr., Lucille and the kids; Michael, Ivanka, Don Jr., Eric, George-Michael, and who am I forgetting, oh Tiffany. Did I say Tiffany? — back to the glorious stream of life.”
The rights to the series were purchased from Fox by Netflix at the end of 2011. Despite the dedicated cult following the show developed during its original run from 2003-06, the fourth season debuted to lukewarm reviews.
When Hurwitz was asked about the potential of a fifth season last year, he told Esquire there was no question the show would be returning. The issue, Hurwitz added, was finding time to bring the cast together and dealing with conflicting schedules.
It’ll happen. It’ll definitely happen. Not before the election, but it’s definitely going to happen. I say that because the actors want to do it, the studio wants to do it, Netflix wants to do it, I want to do it. It’s just making it happen. There’s no one resisting. There’s a recut, too, of the fourth season, just to make it airable on TV. They’re like the old Arrested Developments. We redid all the narration and reshot a few little things. Now we have 22 episodes, and they’re delightful to watch and they’re much less work than the Netflix series. My hope is we’ll find a place to air those.
Arrested Development’s fifth season is set to be released in 2018, but it doesn’t have a specific release date at this time.
