While 15 new episodes of Arrested Development are set to debut on Netflix on May 26th, there’s still no deal in place for the movie that the new episodes set up, and according to Jason Bateman, it’s going to be at least a year or a year and a half. While promoting his new movie Disconnect, Bateman told movie site I Am Rogue that the Netflix episodes ask “a bunch of questions that then the movie answers, so it’s kind of a package. Unfortunately, there’s probably gonna be about a year, maybe a year-and-a-half gap between the two, so you’ll end up having to watch these episodes again.†He added, “It wasn’t perfectly scheduled, but we were just happy to get together as soon as we could.â€
The scariest thing about the deal for the Arrested Development movie not being in place yet is that the movie and the new Netflix episodes seem very dependent on each other. Bateman explains, “One doesn’t really work without the other. They keep saying it’s a new season, but it is actually a bunch of episodes that set up the movie.†Given how busy the Arrested Development cast is and that Mitch Hurwitz hasn’t finished writing the script yet, I feel like Bateman is being a little generous in his estimate of when the movie will be out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes at least two or three years before the Arrested Development film’s release, especially considering that it took seven years to get the gang back together for the new episodes. It’s looking like one long Arrested Development wait is over, but another one will immediately follow as soon as you finish watching that last new episode next month.