I just blue myself! In an interview with USA Today, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos is “positive” about the chances of Arrested Development of returning for a fifth season. According to Sarandos, a new season following the family Bluth will most likely be as inevitable as Michael forgetting his son’s girlfriend’s name, noting that season 5 is not an “if,” but a “when.”
The main stumbling block to more AD goodness isn’t a lack of interest or money in the banana stand, Sarandos acknowledged, but negotiating the waters of the principal actors’ work schedules. He also recognized that the cast didn’t share nearly enough screen time with one another in season 4.
Adding to the possibility of revisiting the Bluths’ model home is show creator Mitch Hurwitz’s openness to continuing the story of a wealthy family who lost everything and… well, you know the rest. Hurwitz recently made an appearance on another Cult Show That Could, Community, as Koogler, one of the “cool kids” on Greendale Community College’s campus.
As for some of the cast, Jason Bateman starred in the hilarious Bad Words and will appear in This Is Where I Leave You, also starring Tina Fey, next month. Will Arnett stars in Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, premiering this Friday.
While I know all of this is talking and conjecture and this point, I’m more excited than George Michael at the prospect that Maeby isn’t his cousin! Arrested Development was the show that paved the way for Community to enter the place where my heart should be, so I’m ready for some more meta, self-referential fun!
Update to the original story: While making a stop by Yahoo to promote his newest film Inferno, Ron Howard, Arrested Development‘s narrator and one of its executive producers, commented on the future of a fifth season:
Season 5 of Arrested Development is definitely in the incubator. [Creator] Mitch Hurwitz is working on scripts, developing stories, and I think everyone’s desire is to do it. Unfortunately, the cast has become so supersonic that it’s a little hard to get everyone together, and that’s what we’re working on now.
Which, really, is what we already knew, but at least there’s some assurance that another season with the Bluths is a possibility.