If you’ve been watching Ozark and wondering whether or not Jason Bateman has turned his back on his comedy past, you can relax because he’ll be back in 2018 with Arrested Development Series 5. We haven’t seen any new episodes from the show since Netflix picked it up for a return in 2011 with Season 4, but it turns out production is underway for yet another series of the genius comedy.
Netflix has commissioned the series once again and Ron Howard and Brian Glazer’s Imagine Entertainment will be behind the production, as ever. Howard has also confirmed that he’ll be narrating Series 5, much like all the other episodes. He Tweeted that he’ll be warming up his vocal chords while editing Solo, hopefully with some Chewie impressions.
Arrested Development Series 5 won’t be arriving on Netflix until 2018, so there’s a while to go before we get to see more from the Bluth family. There’s no official release date as of yet, but if Ron Howard is still yet to do his narration then we’re probably a long way from completion. As a result, we’re probably looking at the latter half of 2018, but we’ll keep you posted as more details are announced.
The story will pick things up with the oddball family following on from the mentalness of Series 4. Michael has his own business troubles deal with and his dad George will undoubtedly be scamming just as much as he ever did back in jail. However, the big question is whether or not Michael and George-Michael will be able to put their little Vs rivalry for Ron Howard’s daughter Rebel behind them.
We’ll also get to see how Gob handled things as the new president of the Bluth Company, but with his excellent business acumen and rational approach, he should be fine. Although, his antics with the Mongolian horde in Series 4, didn’t exactly cover him in glory. He only got the job because of Lucille Austero’s disappearance, which led to his brother Buster’s arrest, so there’s plenty for the fifth season to pick up on.
All of the original cast will be back in action, along with Ron Howard in his narrator’s chair (that’s almost definitely a thing). Jason Bateman will be back as Michael Bluth, which is pretty impressive as he will also be fronting Ozark Series 2 in 2018, so he’s going to be pretty busy. Michael Cera (The Lego Batman Movie) will return as his son George-Michael, Portia de Rossi (Ally McBeal) plays his sister Lindsay, Will Arnett (The Lego Batman Movie) stars as his brother Gob, Tony Hale (American Ultra) plays his other brother Buster and his parents George and Lucille are played by Jeffrey Tambor (The Accountant) and Jessica Walker (Justice League Action).
The cast Lao includes Alia Shawkat (Search Party) as Lindsay’s daughter Maeby and David Cross (Kung Fu Panda 3) as her dad Tobias. However, we’ll have to wait to see whether or not Lisa Minnelli will be returning to Arrested Development after the events of Series 4.
Series creator Mitchell Hurwitz will be showrunner once again with Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox Television producing the show. Mitchell Hurwitz, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jim Vallely and Richie Rosenstock are executive producers, with Brian and Ron both getting cameos in the last series.
Arrested Development has been consistently genius comedy ever since its first Emmy Award-winning run in 2003. It’s opening season on Netflix was a welcome return for the Bluth family and Series 5 is sure to be another batch of crazy funny episodes, so we’re looking forward to the binge next year.
