class=”alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-108264″ title=”Arrested Development” src=”https://www.heyuguys.com/images/2011/09/Arrested-Development-220×150.jpg” alt=”” width=”220″ height=”150″ />Arrested Development is by far one of my favourite TV shows of all time. It’s one of the funniest, smartest, and best-cast programmes I’ve ever seen, and in my opinion, there’s really nothing else like it that’s on TV at the moment.

But, like Fox has a tendency of doing – Family Guy even opened their fourth season with a long list of some of Fox’s cancelled programmes – in spite of its greatness, the show was cancelled, with its final episodes airing back in 2006.

Since then, there’s been a lot of talk about the programme being turned into a movie. Sceptics out there might be critical of the possibility, but Joss Whedon made an utterly awesome film in Serenity after Fox cancelled Firefly, and I think Mitch Hurwitz would do exactly the same thing with Arrested Development. The two shows obviously fall under entirely different genres, but they’re both awesome, and a film version of Arrested Development has so much promise.

Sadly, since the years after its cancellation, all there has been is talk, without any real movement on the project whatsoever. Hurwitz does seem to be keeping in touch with the leading cast from the show, though, and it sounds like they’re all still talking about the film, with questions popping up in interviews from time to time about the show, and whilst no definitive answers ever seem to be given, they’ve often suggested that the cast at least has an idea of what the film will be about, which is something in itself.

The past four paragraphs are essentially all just a prelude to this somewhat unimportant, but nonetheless excellent, news. The Playlist are reporting that the entire cast of Arrested Development, including Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Tony Hale, and Portia de Rossi, will be joining Mitchell Hurwitz, the show’s absolutely genius creator and writer, to take the stage for a panel discussion this weekend on 2nd October in New York.

So you might think of this as a kind of pre-news; news telling you that news should be coming. As you can imagine, gathering the entire cast of Arrested Development with its creator undoubtedly means that they’ll be asked a number of questions about the show – past, present, and future – and hopefully those questions about the future will be given some specific answers about how the film is coming together.

Whilst it was on the air, Arrested Development had some of the best cameo roles I can remember on TV, including Henry Winkler, Charlize Theron, Zach Braff, Liza Minelli, Judy Greer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ben Stiller, Heather Graham, J.K. Simmons, to name just a few. Not to mention the fact that it was narrated by the brilliant Ron Howard, who isn’t mentioned as appearing alongside the cast, but would make for an amazing surprise guest if he’s free at the weekend. We shall see.

So sit tight, stay tuned, and with any luck, we’ll hopefully have something concrete to bring you about the Arrested Development movie by this time next week. I literally cannot wait. Until then, here are some great clips from the show to enjoy. (You may have need to have seen the show to really enjoy them – Arrested Development’s like that, it’s excellent.) If you’re yet to see it, now is the time to start.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_exermAXkU’]

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuHILqDIvis’]

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lFAVLWJhpY’]

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEsdLNG3u6I’]