Arrested Development Will Return with New Season Exclusively on Netflix

Posted by on November 21st, 2011   Filed under: Comedy, Industry News, TV
Source: Hollywood Reporter

It’s official: the Bluths are coming back to television… sort of. In a huge move, the streaming movie rental giant Netflix has stolen Arrested Development away from Fox and even pay TV networks like Showtime who were also trying to land the rights to air the new season of the show. The cult comedy will return in the first half of 2013 with a fourth season, and the new episodes will be exclusively available to Netflix subscribers. The plan, as previously rumoured, is for the fourth season to lead into a feature film, although details are still a bit murky on that front. The new season is expected to be a 10 episode run and will be produced by Imagine Television and 20th Century Fox Television. The folks over at Fox took this opportunity to toot their own horn a little:


Netflix’s bold entrance into original programming presents an exciting new opportunity for our two companies… Bringing a classic show back to production on new episodes exclusively for Netflix customers is a game changer, and illustrates the incredible potential the new digital landscape affords great content providers like 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine.

“We build brands at this studio which are so distinctive that audiences still clamor for them years after they go off the air. Arrested Development is a great example of that—it has stood the test of time. This innovative deal with Netflix represents a new business model that is extremely exciting and opens the door for a wide range of new collaborations.”

I find it funny that they are taking credit for “building the brand” when they are also the ones who canceled the show. For that very reason, it seems only appropriate that Mitch Hurwitz should take Arrested Development to an online streaming service like Netflix, since the internet is where fan interest has fluorished and kept the show alive over the last few years. It’s not the first step Netflix has taken towards original content either; they picked up David Fincher’s House of Cards series earlier this year and they are also pursuing Orange is the New Black, the new series from Weeds creator Jenji Kohan. So what do you think, is this deal really a “game changer” as they have so boldly proclaimed? And more importantly, will Arrested Development be even more successful now than when it originally aired on Fox?



  • Littaly

    So, I’ve been waiting for this to happen for half a decade, only to have it be exclusive to a service that isn’t available in my country? Well, that’s pissy.

    I guess it will be available sooner or later in one form or another, but still, it’s one more reason to be frustrated at the lack of Netflix in Sweden :-/

  • I am guessing it will find different distributors in countries without Netflix, unless Netflix is eventually planning to expand to those countries as well.

  • Kasper

    Littaly: It’ll most likely get released via Viaplay or Lovefilm in Scandinavia.

  • Kasper

    Oh, and this is fucking awesome. I hope it becomes a huge succes for Netflix, so we’ll start seing more quality programming, that isn’t hung up on retarded Nielsen ratings.

  • Eleanor

    Awesome! Any updates about AD being brought to my tv/computer screen is good news!
    I’m not really bothered who hosts it, as I live in the UK!

  • Anthony

    The netflix service in Canada still blows all kinds of ass, so this will likely be a “wait for it to air and then download it” type of thing if it’s not offered by the Canadian service.

  • swarez

    I’ve always wondered why some of these shows were done exclusively for the US market and seem to completely ignore how they are received overseas. I believe AD was far better received over in Europe than in the US and one would think that it was a considerable market and would be able to sustain a production of a show.
    But then I have no idea how these things work.