Back in April, we got a new update on the future of Arrested Development, with producer Brian Grazer revealing that their plan is to make 17 new episodes. It was never confirmed when we might see these Arrested Development Season 5 episodes, but today, the producer appeared on Adam Carolla's podcast, where he confirmed that production will begin in early 2016. Here's what Brian Grazer had to say about the production schedule below.
"Well, I had a conversation with Fox today, this morning. Netflix is determined to do more episodes, so we're gonna do more episodes. We're going to do it [at] the turn of the year. January, February we're gonna start it. It's a lot of juggling of these stars' lives. This whole group have becomes stars in some way, so we're going to juggle all these schedules. (Series creator) Mitchell Hurwitz, who I just called while I was sitting out there in your beautiful waiting room, I made the call to Mitch to say everybody's into it."
Along with confirming the production schedule, Brian Grazer added that the new episodes would debut, "about four months after" production gets under way. So, if principal photography does get started in January of 2016, it seems fans can expect Arrested Development Season 5 to be streaming sometime in April 2016. The producer wouldn't confirm if every main cast member from the previous season will be back, and we haven't heard anything official regarding Arrested Development's return yet, which likely won't happen until all of the cast members are officially locked in for the new season. Still, it seems that fans will get their wish of more Arrested Development next year.
Of course, no story details were given for the new season, but it will be curious to see if the producers employ the same format as they did with Arrested Development Season 4, which largely centered on just one character in the Bluth family at a time. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said last year that it was a "fair criticism" that the whole family wasn't together that much last season, but it remains to be seen if they will go in a different direction to alleviate the fans' concerns. Are you glad that Arrested Development is coming back next year?