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Arrested Development season 4 news just keeps coming in and I couldn’t be happier. It was great to announce that Kristen Wiig was joining the cast as a young Lucille Bluth and today we have more news from series creator, Mitch Hurwitz. Hurwitz recently held an AD panel at the Television Critics Association and revealed a lot of news on the upcoming fourth season.

Anthology Adventures

“The only way we could get everyone together for what we’ll call, loosely, an anthology series, was to dedicate each episode to a different character’s point of view,” the showrunner explained. “That became a fun, entertaining challenge, because we started finding out that the stories would intersect…. So, you’ll see a scene in one [episode], and then you’ll see a scene again from the other perspective [in another episode] where you’ll get all this new information.” Added Bateman: “Exclusive to the format that Netflix provides for us… you can watch a portion of Michael’s episode and then click over to Lucille’s episode,” and so on. The unique format means that the upcoming batch of episodes really just creates “this one giant, 700-minute Arrested Development,” Hurwitz joked.

The Movie

“basically just the first act of what we hope to continue and complete in a movie, which would be Act 2 and Act 3,” Bateman explained. “These [new] are episodes set that up. One does not work without the other.” “It was mislabeled early on,” he said. “There is certainly a satisfying conclusion to these episodes, if for some unfortunate reason the movie does not happen. But [the episodes and the movie] are all meant to work within each other as a hybrid package of Arrested Development stuff.”

The new cast

We’ve been keeping your up-to-date on just who is joining the Bluth Family in their new adventures, and here’s the head count so far: Liza Minnelli, Conan O’Brien, John Slattery, Chris Diamantopoulos, Isla Fisher, Terry Crews, Henry Winkler, Kristen Wiig, and also Seth Rogen. Why they can’t lock down Scott Baio and Carl Weathers though, I don’t understand!

Writers update

Michael Cera has not only returned in front of the camera, but he has also joined as a writer.  “Michael is such a brilliant guy and such a great writer,” Hurwitz gushed. “I really did bring him in because he’s such an open guy and wants to learn this other craft… And then suddenly we were very dependent on Michael Cera being in the writers’ room. It became clear that [Arrested Development] was like his first language.”

Bluth by Numbers

 Each episode will revolve around a different member of the Bluth family, but also branch out to the “voice” of the show, Ron Howard. “Everybody intermingles throughout each individual person’s episode,” Bateman revealed. “There’s plenty of the regular cast that filters through there. But it is [a single character’s episode] that we all just guest-star in.”

This gets me more excited every day! I really can’t wait for the May 4th release date on Netflix! Stay tuned to DFAT for more Arrested Development news.

~Chaz