Arrested Development has a new home. At Netflix. The critically-acclaimed, award-winning show is returning for a new series of episodes in 2013. Is this enough to prompt people to forget Qwikster and forgo canceling their subscriptions?
Arrested Development…
Arrested Development
was off-the-wall, unique, and original. And a hit with the critics. Unfortunately audiences never took to it in huge numbers, with its ratings dropping over the course of its three seasons. This was enough to prompt Fox to cancel the show. And unlike Family Guy there would be no coming back.
However, the millions-strong audience who did enjoy the show have never ceased campaigning for its return, helped by growing numbers catching up with the cult show on DVD or, funnily enough, streaming services such as Netflix.
An Arrested Development movie has already been confirmed, and now a new series of the show is in the offing. On Netflix.
Returns On Netflix
In March 2011 Netflix won the bid to produce House Of Cards, an original drama starring Kevin Spacey. A $100 million-plus budget will see two seasons of the show made to be exclusively aired on Netflix.
Fast-forward eight months and Netflix has grabbed Arrested Development as well. The show was canceled in 2006 after three seasons, and Netflix will be licensing the show from 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine Television.
The stars of the show include Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, and Portia de Rossi. All have moved onwards and upwards but have expressed an interest in returning to Arrested Development.
Netflix beat other bidders including Showtime. No details of the deal have been revealed, so we don’t yet know what the budget will be.
Conclusions
This is a clever play by Netflix. What better way to restore consumer and market confidence (after the price hikes and Qwikster debacle) than financing the return of a beloved show? And with the hype surrounding its cancellation and subsequent attempts to have it recommissioned viewing figures could be high this time around.
Netflix will certainly be hoping so. Otherwise it will face the backlash when it too pulls a Fox and cancels Arrested Development. Or is that just me being overly pessimistic?
[Via Variety]
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