Developer arrested

It never really seemed fair that a show as funny as Arrested Development was cancelled.

The brilliantly hilarious sitcom featuring the highly dysfunctional Bluth family launched Michael Cera’s and Will Arnett’s careers, as well as re-launched Jason Bateman’s (face it, it’s hard to come back from Teen Wolf Too).

And though we’ve been treated to the comedic genius of the aforementioned actors, (Arnett’s Gavin Banks from 30 Rock, Cera’s bumbling, awkward teenager from everything and Bateman’s newfound dramatic chops) we all miss the gut-busting trials and tribulations of the Bluth Company.

There are plenty of pompous finger-pointers out there who frequently lament Arrested Development‘s fate, accusing the general public of being too stupid to “get” the show, therefore dooming it to low viewership and, ultimately, cancellation after three seasons. But these people are wrong.

Their feigned intellectual superiority can be discounted by the fact that Arrested Development was a show that required a dedicated viewing schedule. Missing the occasional episode would throw you out of the loop because the show runners managed to fit so many jokes, references and new plot points into each episode.

In an ideal world, Arrested Development would have been on HBO or Showtime. Regardless, Arrested Development, like fellow FOX sitcoms Family Guy and Futurama, found new life on DVD, where viewers were able to watch at their leisure.

But Family Guy and Futurama were brought back in a variety of incarnations (renewed seasons, straight-to-DVD movies) after enjoying huge DVD sales. So where’s Arrested Development‘s revival?

Certainly the program, arguably the finest sitcom ever produced, deserves more than dozens of fans methodically re-watching the DVDs. Right?

Well, yes and no. Arrested Development will not return to television but, according to a number of entertainment rags, Mitch Hurwitz (the show’s creator/producer) and Ron Howard (the show’s narrator/producer), are making good on Howard’s suggestion to Maeby Funke at the end of the series: “Maybe a movie.”

So… what about a movie? Regardless of how you feel about it, they’re going forward with it. And I couldn’t be more psyched. Normally, I would harbor apprehension when a show so well suited for its broadcast television format is transferred to the big screen.

But Hurwitz and his writers are friggin’ geniuses and I believe they wouldn’t do it if they didn’t think it could be done. With months of speculation, rumors and hearsay, including remarks from Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor (George Sr.), it would seem that virtually the entire cast is excited to get on board.

In celebration of this magnificent and long overdue news, I, a humble Arrested Development fan, in an instance of self-indulgence, have taken it upon myself to examine what might be involved in an Arrested Development movie. The following ideas would, hypothetically of course, be only parts of the film.

WARNING: if you have not seen the show but intend to do so, do not read further. There are MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD.

Hypothetical plot lines for the Arrested Development movie:The meta-movieOne approach the producers could take is the movie-within-a-movie. The family, insisting on being a part of the casting and production of the film suggested by Ron Howard, spend the film arguing over and standing in the way of production of the film. This would give Hurwitz plenty of fodder for mocking the machinations of Hollywood.

Lindsey’s familyLindsey, after discovering she is not related to the Bluths, goes in search of her biological parents, only to find that they are characters already familiar to the show. Any of the older cast members could be one of her parents, Lucille Austero, “Uncle” Jack or family attorney Barry Zuckerkorn.

Buster the mechanical manBuster, recruited by the army for a top-secret experiment, is given a mechanical hand a la Star Wars. After watching Spider-Man 2, Buster fears that the hand will take control of his mind in a freak accident. Paranoid, he isolates himself further from his family by moving into an abandoned warehouse with the intention of studying quantum mechanics, but instead playing Wii nonstop.

George Michael goes to collegeGeorge Michael gets accepted to a prestigious university on the East Coast but, given the family’s financial situation, is forced to go to a local college. There, George Michael finds that his roommate is his cousin and one-time rival, Steve Holt.

Lucille goes to prisonLucille, outed as the mastermind behind the Bluth Company’s financial woes, is arrested and awaits trial. Defense attorney Barry Zuckerkorn is hired, as well as Bob Loblaw, because the prosecution is, of course, run by Wayne Jarvis.

Chief Executive G.O.B. G.O.B. uses his father’s contacts to begin another Bluth Company. Given the economic fiasco currently facing the housing market, G.O.B. goes overseas to build houses in Iran. There he runs into his ex-wife (Amy Poehler, Arnett’s real wife, never given a name in the series), who is commanding a not-so-covert invasion to “free” Iran. They reignite their passion for a brief evening before remarrying and spending the ensuing time hating each other’s guts.