Arrested Development is one of my all-time favorite shows. I have watched my DVD’s (seasons 1-3) from start to finish probably about 5-7 times, plus I have watched various individual episodes too many times to count. Pretty much from the moment it was cancelled, especially in the last year, there has been talk of making an AD movie. I have been looking forward to it as long as it has been rumored, but lately I have been worried about something – what if it sucks? Will I be able to handle it? And I am not talking about if it is a financial flop – I am pretty sure it will fail horribly at the box office. Arrested Development’s big down fall was how hard it was to pick up if you hadn’t been around from the beginning (too many recurring jokes and references to past and future episodes that were a great reward for longtime fans but made it harder to attract new fans). I have very little doubt that anyone who is not a diehard fan is going to see this movie. The original ratings were anemic and, while I know the show was a huge seller on DVD, the crowd of fans can’t be THAT big. So, unless I am totally off base, this will probably be the one and only shot to get more adventures of the Bluth family.
I have to ask again… what if it sucks? What if it is the comedy version of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Intentional comedy version, that is – there was plenty of un-intentional comedy in that fiasco. Although, while Indy IV’s sucking disappointed me, it didn’t hurt as much as it will if AD is terrible. First, it had been 19 years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out, so I didn’t have the closeness anymore that I have with AD. Sure, I still watch my Indy DVD’s every once in a while. I watch Arrested Development ALL THE TIME (hell, I just watched a few episodes the other night). Also, before watching Indy IV, I had seen the Star Wars prequels. I know what George Lucas was capable of. While I am not quite as hard on them as most people, I know that some things are very bad in those movies – terrible dialog, too much unnecessary CGI, etc. Even though I was hoping that Crystal Skull would be an Indiana Jones movie like the first 3, I really wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t. This is different – Mitchell Hurwitz (the brains behind AD) hasn’t had any super flops to make me suspicious yet (I am not counting Sit Down and Shut Up, his animated show on Fox – I haven’t seen any of the episodes to know if the lukewarm reviews it received were justified and I also don’t consider a half dozen episodes of this show enough to constitute a flop big enough to make me nervous). I still think he has the magic.
Basically, I have been vacillating between trying to not get my hopes up and getting wildly excited every time one of the cast members is interviewed and mentions the movie. Michael Cera was the last hold out, but he seems on board, so all that is missing is the script. He seems like the cast member with the most to lose if this movie stinks, since his career is just taking off and he has had a nice string of successful to moderately successful films. At first, his reluctance made me think that maybe there shouldn’t be an AD movie and that we should both just be satisfied with the way the show ended (we as fans got a great 3 season run of hilarious stories and he got the start of his movie career). THEN, I read a description of his next movie - the film is about two men traveling through the stories in the early parts of the Bible - "Zed" (played by Jack Black) and his friend "Oh" (played by Michael Cera). Obviously, he is not afraid of a flop, as this movie has bomb written all over it. Maybe his reluctance to do AD resulted because he’s just a jerk that didn’t want to help out the people who gave him a start. Or not. I still don’t know what to think about this movie. Of course, it will be at least 2010 until it comes out, so maybe I am getting worked up for nothing (ok, so I definitely am definitely getting worked up early for nothing). I will just stick to playing the Arrested Development drinking game for now (and working on the associated t shirt)...
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