|
An interview with Mitchell Hurwitz - creator of 'Arrested Development'
On "Arrested Development’s" efforts to find an audience:
"I think it’s tough to find a match for this show, which is kind of the flip side of the coin of trying something new, it’s harder to find a companion for it. There have been people taking more risks on TV lately, so maybe it’s more feasible now than last year.
"Also, we’ve had kind of this start-and-go [schedule] on the show — it’s just been the nature of the show that we’re usually on after the World Series, they would promote it to baseball fans, but it turns out they may not be the best audience to go for [laughs]. After we won the Emmy [in 2004] we weren’t on the air for five weeks.
"I really believe everyone at Fox desperately wants the show to succeed and is tremendously dedicated to that goal, but there have just been these kind of scheduling quirks and late starts and lack of a compatible series."
On Oscar winner Charlize Theron guesting on five episodes of the show, including the two episodes that air when the show returns Nov. 7:
"Patty Jenkins [who directed Theron in ‘Monster’] directed an episode, and we heard through her that Charlize was really into the show. We contacted her to see if she would ever be interested in doing the show. At the start of the season, I had this Rita part, it was about five episodes and we said, ‘This could be a really great, fun part, but can she start tomorrow and work around the clock for five weeks?’ [laughs] But she was so much fun, she was a really good sport and so funny."
On ratings:
"I’m fairly naïve about that stuff, and I don’t look at the ratings info they send over all that closely. But apparently we’re No. 1 in the 18-49 demographic in Portland, Oregon. Actually, we hear the sales staff [at Fox] likes the show a lot, so that’s good."
On how Fox views "Arrested Development:
"I hope they’ve come to see the show as a loss leader, not a negative to the network, but a different kind of positive."
On whether the show will produce 22 episodes, as originally ordered, during its third season:
"It won’t be 22. It might be a good number [so that they can do a boxed set for DVDs]. That’s part of it, if they know they can sell those DVDs, they might keep it on the air long enough to have enough to sell it [that way]."
On rumors over the summer that "A.D." was going to get booked for two more seasons by Fox:
"I think that idea was in play, but I think they were hoping to significantly reduce the budget and it didn’t seem to the creative people who do the show to be a good idea. To get two years [with a reduced budget] didn’t seem like a good tradeoff."
On whether the show would ever get picked up by another network:
"The whole TV world has changed so much… But first, I have to say, we have not explored anything like this, we haven’t needed to because Fox was kind enough to bring us back, so it isn’t a road we’ve even gone down. I imagine we’d fight to make the show somewhere else if we were not picked up by Fox, but that’s so speculative. We’re on the Fox network."
On whether an "Arrested Development" book that had been talked about online is coming out soon:
"No. They were talking about that, they might even be waiting for me on that. They probably do want to do a companion book, but I’m unavailable right now, this show takes every second of my time."
On how getting Emmys and lots of other awards has helped keep the show alive:
"It just has a huge impact [to get Emmys]. I have to think that if the show did not get that support from critics or the [TV] academy, that it would make it easier to cancel. It’s really just been an amazing blessing, I’ve never experienced anything like it in my career. It’s made this whole thing so rewarding. You want people to connect with the material, and even if we don’t get the giant [ratings] numbers, ultimately what we’re doing it for is to connect with the audience. It’s what makes the hard work worthwhile."
On whether the show’s plots are more or less complicated this year:
"When we came back, the mandate was to simplify the show. The truth is, we’re telling fewer stories per episode — whereas we might have seven or eight stories per episode before, now we have four or five. The difference this season is that the stories are more intertwined, we have a little more continuity and are telling stories over several episodes, not just trying to cram everything into one episode."
On the cast:
"We had three weeks to put the cast together. I thought, there’s no way we can get this cast right. I mean, Gob, Buster — it’s impossible to find each one of those, they’re all such hard parts to cast! And in every case, one person was right for the role. They’re so good, I often think, when I’m overwhelmed by work, that I’d be so sad if the show went away and I never worked with this cast again. Every single one of them is so solid."
On Michael Cera, who plays George Michael:
"He’s the soul of the show. He’s such a sweet little gem. He’s the thing that makes it not really a dark, cynical show."
On his favorite episode:
"I can’t pick. I kind of mostly see what’s wrong with them. I see what doesn’t work, and it drives me crazy."
On the critical love for the show:
"I really think that kind of pressure got the show picked up [for a third season]. [Fox head] Peter Liguori was still new to the job then, he didn’t want to walk out on that stage [at the annual Television Critics Association meeting in July] and get made fun of for [canceling ‘A.D.’ while promoting] the other shows they were trying to bring out. Actually, this year, they picked up pretty good shows."
On fan efforts to keep the show going, including news updates via the-op.com and SaveOurBluths.com’s blizzarding of Fox execs with fake bananas, etc:
"The-OP.com, that’s brilliant. There’s no doubt that [the fan campaign] had a big impact. Coupled with the critics’ push for its return, it really created this tremendous potential for bad PR if they didn’t renew the show.
"And the ardency of the fan base suggested the DVD sales would do well, which I believe has been the case. I just went to the Fox store to see if they have it, last year they didn’t have it, it sold out really fast, but this year they have tons of them. I go to Amazon and I always check the rank, right now Season 2 is No. 5 and Season 1 is back up there [near the top]." [Shortly after this conversation, Season 2 went to No. 1 on Amazon.com’s boxed set list].
On how DVD sales have helped the show surive:
"It’s like, in the TV market, there might be a little bit of change. Maybe you used to need an 11 share, but maybe now you can have a smaller number but make up for it with people who purchase the show. We’re making the show for new technology and DVDs, it’s made for TiVo, much moreso than it’s made for watching once. There’s a value in rewatching it.
"Still there’s no procedure for DVDs, everything on the DVDs was basically me and a couple of other producers deciding, ‘Hey, let’s go [edit] some outtakes [for the DVD].’ There’s no process in place for that now. It does seem like that is the next step, that they will come to showrunners and say, ‘Save that for DVD,’ get special things together. I’m surprised they don’t do that more now, it’s very cheap to do."
Hurwitz also mentioned in passing that the show created an Asian version of the show’s puppet character, Franklin, but they didn’t end up using it. Personally, I think they should donate it to the city of Portland.
( Chicago Tribune )
|
