Arrested Development is one of those series not really appreciated in its time. When it was on the air originally, it had rather low ratings and was cancelled by Fox after three seasons. It was a great show but sadly, a lot of people just didn’t “get it.”

Since its original run, the show has enjoyed newfound success in reruns as well as on DVD and Netflix and has attained cult status among those who appreciate great TV. There’s also been talk of a movie version of the series for years as well and now it seems those plans are finally coming to fruition.

But wait, there’s more. According to reports the show’s creator, Mitch Hurtwitz, plans to bring the Emmy-winning series back to television for 9 or 10 episodes before making movie. That’s right, a new series and a movie. Awesome.

Hurwitz didn’t say where the potential series would air but reportedly the two front runners are Netflix, which is looking for original programming, and Showtime, whose new entertainment president David Nevins used to work at Imagine TV and served as an executive producer on the original series.

Original series star Jason Bateman also confirmed the news on Twitter. “It’s true,” he posted. “We will do 10 episodes and the movie. Probably shoot them all together next summer for a release in early ’13. VERY excited!”

Pretty sure he’s not the only one.

Those who watch NBC comedies Parks & Recreation, Community and Saturday Night Live know that some of the considered “favorites” of those shows consist of Donald Glover, Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Aubrey Plaza. Sure, there are a few others, but now we’re getting all of these names in one place with the new indie comedy The Hand Job.

From Variety:

Hader’s wife, Maggie Carey, is set to write and make her feature directorial debut on the coming-of-age story; Plaza will star as a type-A valedictorian who’s determined to lose her virginity before leaving for college. Project does not have a start date yet, as financing is still coming together.

In addition, TV veterans Connie Britton (“Friday Night Lights”) and Alia Shawkat (“Arrested Development”) have joined the ensemble, while Plaza’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” co-stars Johnny Simmons and Mae Whitman have come aboard to provide comedic support.

So as if the list of stars wasn’t enough with NBC’s top four, they’re adding two Arrested Development alumni to the mix. This could just be the indie comedy (and hopefully more) of the year.

We’re just hoping they keep the title.

In case you haven’t been keeping up, we’ve been bringing you tons of great interviews with the cast of Adult Swim’s newest series, Children’s Hospital. We’ve already spoken with Ken Marino, Paul Scheer, and the lovely Lake Bell, so today we go straight to the man on top, Rob Huebel.

Many remember Rob as one of the founding members of MTV’s Human Giant, but he’s probably known best for being in just about everything that has to do with comedy on TV in the past 5 years. From Arrested Development to I Love You, Man to 30 Rock, American Dad, The Office and countless others. Huebel is certainly a character actor who gets around.

It seems that he’s most recently found a home on Rob Corddry’s Children’s Hospital as the clueless Dr. Owen Maestro, the melodramatic love interest of just about every female lead on the show. We spoke with Rob about Hospital as well as a few of his upcoming projects that we were pretty excited to hear about.

Check out the full interview after the jump and be sure to catch an ALL NEW season of Children’s Hospital this Sunday, August 22nd at 10:30 PM, only on Adult Swim.

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This weekend may be a tough decision for many moviegoers, as Eat Pray Love and The Expendables open against fan favorite Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. We know which we’ll be seeing (probably all three), but in the meantime, we’ve got some awesome clips from Pilgrim which should get you ready for the movie.

In the film Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) must defend his love for new girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) by defeating her seven evil exes. Those exes include names like Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, and more.

In the clips we’ve got for you, you can see Cera actually show some emotion other than empathy, which is a pretty big leap if you’ve seen his other films. Fun fact for all of you Arrested Development fans: Mae Whitman, who plays evil ex Roxy in the film has worked with Cera before, as Ann (“Egg”) on Development. We can assure you that they won’t be making out in this one.

The film is based on the comic series by Bryan Lee O’Malley and comes from director Edgar Wright, the mind behind other fan faves such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Check out all four clips from the movie after the jump. See Scott Pilgrim take on the seven evil exes this Friday (That’s tomorrow).

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There aren’t a lot of movie or TV franchises that help shape the world of science fiction for all future properties. Star Wars and Star Trek obviously had a lot of influence, as did others like Blade Runner or even, to a lesser extent,  the more recent Avatar. One show that should not be overlooked on this list is the 1980′s series Max Headroom.

The show took the concept of cyber terrorism and technological advances to a whole new level at the time, opening the doors to loads of references to the subject of subliminal messages in a media driven world. Taking place “20 minutes in the future,” the show follows hard news journalist Edison Carter, who gets taken out during a sting to uncover a new subliminal commercial that kills it’s viewers.

The company that obtains Carter attempts to expose downloads his memories into a computer-generated program (years before this was common to us geeks) which calls itself Max Headroom. From there, the show’s focus falls mainly on Headroom and his comedic “Greek chorus” narration of the episode.

The cast alone was enough to get any non-fan interested. Featuring a pretty geek-friendly cast lead by Matt Frewer, who true nerds remember from Watchmen and the Fox TV movie Generation X. Along for the ride is the late SNL member Charles Rocket, love interest from the epic Flash TV series, Amanda Pays, and the always lovable Jeffrey Tambor as “Murray.”

The show became more than law to many sci-fi and fiction fans at the time, years before things like Quantum Leap and VR-5 dominated the minds of fans everywhere.  For years, people would have to get their Max Headroom fix from brief clips on YouTube and rundown copies in basement comic conventions. Not any more, as Shout! Factory released the complete series on DVD for the first time yesterday.

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Here at The Flickcast, we probably haven’t mourned the loss of any show more than Arrested Development, the quirky comedy that stole our hearts (but not the ratings) and was canceled after three short seasons. Adding further to this deep emotional blow is the fact that the film adaptation of the series has been so on-again off-again that most fans of the show have been pretty much convinced that it’s just not happening.

However, according to Arrested Development cast member Will Arnett and show created Mitch Hurwitz, the film is still definitely on. In a recent interview with GQ, Arnett and Hurwitz confirmed that the movie was still a go, and that the script was still being worked on.

“We’re changing some of the Bush references to Obama because we started it awhile ago,” said Hurwitz. “And the Bluths may not be vacationing in the Gulf of Mexico anymore. We also might have to recast the part of Uncle Mel, the former action movie star. But other than that we have a clear path.”

Arnett and Hurwitz are collaborating on another television show called “Running Wild”, but once that’s up and running,  Arrested Development will be their top priority.

“Believe it or not,” Hurwitz says, “I do not enjoy teasing our wonderful and devoted audience, which is one reason it appears that I’ve been so cagey about this. It’s just that I don’t want to promise what I can’t deliver.”

It’s great to finally get some details on this movie after so long, as well as a confirmation that it’s still happening. Good things come to those who wait, and in this case, an Arrested Development movie would be a great thing indeed.

This week On the Radar a bunch of gaming news about Halo and Gears of War, Red Sonja switches up celebrity hotties, Mark Strong talks Sinestro in Green Lantern and Tom Arnold takes to the sea to fight aliens!

Court dismisses Marvel, Stan Lee law suit.  Excelsior!

While Stan Lee has been working overtime on film cameos and convention appearances he’s also been dealing with legal fights.  This one was between Stan Lee Media Inc. and it’s former board members.  At it’s most basic level the case was over ownership of mainstream characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Fantastic Four.

The judge dismissed the case based on two primary factors.  First, the shareholders did not acquire their shares until a year after the issue of ownership occurred and second, said shareholders should not have waited nearly a decade to file their case.  No word yet on whether the decision will be appealed so until next time true believers…

Halo movie will be happening at some point

What should be an easy sell as far as a video game adaption, Halo has struggled to gain traction with studios.  However, Frank O’Connor of Microsoft Game Studios has said the film will happen eventually:

“We’re going to make a movie when the time is right,” he said. “We own the IP. If we want to make a movie, the scale of all the other stuff that we do changes dramatically. We make tens and tens of millions of dollars on ancillary stuff, toys, apparel, music and publishing. If we do a movie all of that will grow exponentially. We have some numbers if we do a movie, but it changes everything. It also changes our target and age demographic.”

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In the first installment of TV Digest: Canceled, I talked about shows such as Moonlight, Jerico and Studio 60 that were gone too soon. This time I’ve got more shows that were canceled way before their time, and are a testament to both how amazing television can be but also how nearsighted executives can be when making the decision to cancel a show.

While these shows may no longer grace our television sets with shiny, fresh new episodes, they live on in our hearts and on our DVD shelves. These are what I consider to be the most beloved canceled TV shows of our time.

Arrested Development

Produced by brilliant filmmaker Ron Howard and starring a slew of incredible actors, Arrested Development ran for three seasons from 2003-2006. Shot in a documentary style fashion, like The Office, the show is about the wealthy but seriously crazy Bluth family after their father gets arrested and their company faces bankruptcy.

Oldest son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is the glue that holds everyone together while siblings Gob (Will Arnett), Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and her husband Tobias (David Cross), and Buster (Tony Hale) do their best to make a mess of things. I really can’t say enough about how good this show was.

Other than the incredible casting, this show has some of the best writing and comedic timing I’ve ever seen on television. I have watched all three seasons multiple times and I can watch an episode now and still find something brand new to laugh about, because of how well the writers reference old jokes and spin new ones in their wake.

But the show also can have these incredibly heartfelt moments, in between the insanity, that remind us how important it is to be a family despite how much money you have in the bank. And as the economy continues its slump, this crazy family in the midst of financial turmoil is looking far less eccentric and just plain average. As this show ages it becomes more and more relevant, and it becomes clearer and clearer just how great it is.

Despite all that, as well as numerous Emmy nominations and wins, the show was canceled. Luckily we’ll see more of the Bluth family soon, in a feature length movie that begins shooting this year.

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It’s been three long, sad years since the Emmy-winning Fox TV show Arrested Development was canceled, and after months of rumor and speculation it looks like the Bluth family will be making it to the big screen after all. The Hollywood Reporter just reported that show creator Mitchell Hurwitz and show co-executive producer James Vallely are working on a script for the hugely anticipated big screen adaptation of the show. Imagine and Fox Searchlight will produce the film.

Debuting in 2003, Arrested Development focused in on the Bluths, a crazy family whose business goes sour and are left with nothing but each other. According to Hurwitz, the biggest holdup of the script being penned was getting the entire cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, David Cross, Will Arnett, Alia Shawkat, Portia de Rossi and Jeffrey Tambor, committed to the film.

Scheduling conflicts are certain, as cast members Cera, Arnett, and Bateman have had incredibly successful careers since the show ended. In the meantime, Hurwitz and Vallely are working together on a new animated show on Fox titled Sit Down, Shut Up, also starring Will Arnett and Jason Bateman.

As with some of NBC’s other upcoming Fall shows, we’ve been following Community pretty closely for a few reasons. One, I went to community college for a bit, so I know first hand what it feels like to go there while most of your friends go off to more prestigious four year institutions of higher learning.

Second, the show looks funny and features a great cast including Joel McHale, comedy legend Chevy Chase and the hilarious Ken Jeong — who if you haven’t seen his performance in The Hangover, you have not seen comedy gold.

Fortunately, one of these new clips here is an interview with the man himself, Ken Jeong. The other offers a further look at life at a community college and how best to maximize your potential while you’re there. Both clips are fun, funny and fantastic and you should watch them and Community, when it debuts on NBC on Thursday, September 17th at 9:30/8:30C.

Check out the clips after the jump.

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The good people at NBC have seen fit to send us some promos for three of their upcoming Fall tv series. The shows, Parenthood, Community and Trauma, each have recognizable and likeable casts, good production value and look to be worth checking out. Here’s a bit about each show.

Parenthood – From Imagine Entertainment’s Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, writer/executive producer Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights), and Emmy Award-winning director Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing) comes this contemporary re-imagining of the blockbuster film Parenthood, focusing on the everyday challenges that modern families face while raising children and starting over.

Community – From Emmy Award-winning directors Joe and Anthony Russo (Arrested Development) comes a smart comedy about higher education…and lower expectations. Community focuses on a band of misfits, at the center of which is a fast-talkin’ lawyer whose degree has been revoked (Joel McHale, The Soup). They form a study group and, in Breakfast Club fashion, end up learning a lot more about themselves than they do about their course work.

Trauma – From executive producer Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), Trauma is the first high-octane medical franchise to live exclusively in the field, where the real action is. Trauma is an intense, action-packed look at one of the most dangerous medical professions in the world: first responder paramedics.

Be sure to check out all three promos after the break. For all the latest news on NBC’s upcoming Fall schedule, go here.

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