“Arrested Development” alumni David Cross has finally admitted to what we all knew would eventually happen in our heart of hearts regarding the fate of the show’s proposed feature film adaptation.
“I think what I will tell you, it’s not going to happen,” Cross tells TvSquad. “It’s not official, but I just don’t think it’s going to happen. Way too much time it’s been [since the show ended]. I mean, there’s so many people involved. Everyone’s doing their own thing, you know. And everybody’s aged. It’s just not going to happen. I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say we’d love for it to happen, we’d love to work on it, but just I don’t think… not going to happen.”
The sentiment is a complete 180 turn on everything that’s been said by the likes of Cross, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera and Mitch Hurwitz in the past but, despite all their attempts to instill hope in fans, the project’s development was always questionable.
Cross though didn’t leave on that pessimistic note, offering his own solution to the problem: a U.K. sitcom-inspired Christmas special. That or he just wanted an easy segue to his new U.K. sitcom “The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret.”
“It would just feel, I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. But it’s ah, it would feel strange and foreign to see these characters on a movie theater screen, I think… It would be great to do it on TV. Like kind of what they do in Britain. If they have a successful show, the comedy shows at least, they’ll have a Christmas special. The actors and writers will all get together and you know, create a one-off kind of Christmas special thing. Yeah. I mean, they do that a lot in the UK, you know, with the sitcoms. So like ‘The IT Crowd,’ ‘Gavin and Stacey,’ ‘Extras,’ ‘Office,’ you know, stick with these Christmas shows. So that would be a good way to do it. I think it would feel odd on a big screen. Anything over 42 inches.”
It’s a nice idea, but it sounds like a pipedream from Cross rather than anything that has been substantially discussed with the show’s brains trusts. Hurwitz is currently occupying himself with comedy pilot “Wilde Kingdom” starring Will Arnett and has continually pursued new projects when he’s seemingly free to develop the ‘Arrested Development’ feature. Our advice? Put you’re money on the project being dead in the water and just appreciate the show’s three seasons on DVD.
