HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL: “We’ve been covering rumours of an Arrested Development movie for nearly a year now,” writes Brian Jacks on MTV’s Movies Blog, before going on to dish up the latest news — or non-news, as it may be — about the unmade film that no one seriously expects to see.
Movie versions of cancelled TV series are basically the production house version of “I’ll call you” — an insincere promise made during a moment of weakness, meant to paper over the awkwardness of telling people that one day, hopefully sooner than they think, it’ll be time to move on.
Movie versions of everything from The Sopranos, Rome and Deadwood to The Riches and Jericho have been talked about, sometimes with a straight face — HBO has a seasoned Lothario’s propensity for the empty gesture — but they’ve only rarely materialized; Joss Whedon’s Serenity, based on his short-lived Firefly series, and the epic Sex And The City film are the most recent examples, and I don’t think anyone will seriously suggest that the reputation of the originals was in any way enhanced by their movie reprises.
Talk of an Arrested Development film has been going on since before the last episode aired almost two years ago. Several of the key cast members have made enthusiastic noises about doing a film, but the notable holdout has been rumoured to be Michael Cera, whose career has taken off since the show left the air.
Interviewed at Sundance, Cera denied that he was the holdout to MTV, but did say that he has yet to see a script and that the movie may be “more hypothetical than people think.” By now, fans of the show should probably start admitting that the moment is past, and that by the time this chimera could actually materialize in the theatres, it’ll be the equivalent of a Freaks And Geeks movie. (Which, come to think of it, is what nearly every Judd Apatow film so far has been.)
I KNOW I PROMISED, BUT: Now that creator Matt Weiner has been resigned to the show for two more episodes, I think it’s time I broke my vow not to talk about Mad Men until the third season begins —sometime in July, according to the New York Post. And that would be all I’ve got, right now. Yup, that’s it. Nothing more. You can stop reading now.
