Sunday 18 July 2010

Hollywood Babble On & On #556: My Pet Peeve

Welcome to the show folks....

The weather here at the ranch is hot, humid, and just plain crappy. This is making me extremely cranky, so I'm going to do some cranking here so you can derive entertainment from my rage. I have a pet peeve that needs to be addressed, and address it I shall.

It really, really, really annoys me when I see yet another report that a movie version of the failed sitcom
Arrested Development is in the works, only to be debunked the next day. Yet at least once a month, someone announces that the movie is on, then retracts, or denies the statement as soon as possible.

Here's a little note to all the website editors who keep reporting these stories, and those who leap on them as some ray of sunshine in their drab empty lives: IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

There, I said it, and I'm going to stick by it, and here's why:

1. The Audience: Had a talented cast, and lots of critical acclaim, but it never had a large audience. By the time they scraped by into a 3rd season, they had lost most of their most ardent fans who knew it wasn't going to last. Unlike
Star Trek it did not have a renaissance in syndication, and no company will think it worth the...

2. Cost: Sure Jason Bateman and Michael Cera have had some big screen success, and some failures, but their status, and the show's small audience, no matter how passionate, is going to justify the cost. Hollywood can't make a romantic comedy with no big stars without pissing away $50 million minimum. Is the studio that owns it willing to spend that sort of money adapting a movie from a short-lived, never truly popular show that managed to have an underlying theme of incest in almost every episode and involving almost every character.

3. Time: The show was canceled about two lifetimes ago in Hollywood terms, and exists only as a faint memory among a small audience. Where will the movie pick up? Will it restate the plot-lines? How will it explain the years that have passed since the end of the show? How is the movie going to restate the complicated relationships to the new audience that it needs to in order to justify its existence?

So please stop posting those Arrested Development movie reports, and those who loved the show, refuse to let these people play with your hopes. I liked the show, but like a lot of people, I sort of lost interest during the third season, and drifted away, but I know that a movie isn't the answer to a show that just didn't catch on with the general public. Let the cast and the writers move on to other things, and leave the show in the past. It's over, it's done, let it go.

What do you think of those reports of the Arrested Development movie?

1 comment:

  1. je pressman22/7/10 3:58 am

    Apropos of this post is an IMDB poll listing past TV series and asking which ones would be good candidates to be a movie. My answer would be none of them. Awhile back some TV geniuses were floating the idea of reviving the Rockford Files. Don't these Einsteins get why that series was successful.Two words Jim Garner. There was a great supporting cast but the show was all about Garner's personality. Give it up guys and find a detective series and star appropriate for 2010. Please no teenage gumshoes our pop culture is awash in teenage super heroes, would be magicians,vampires and werewolves, and wise-guy comedians. Maturity can be a good thing,you know a life experience is worth a heck of a lot.And no Arrested Development if you please..talk about unnecessary,sheeeesh.

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