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Since the show's nigh-criminal cancellation in 2006 (unfortunately, the Supreme Court refused to even hear our case), speculation on a possible film version of Arrested Development has been running for nearly as long as the series was on television. There's been some reassuring words from series creator Mitch Hurwitz and various cast members, but with each bit of good news came word of an actor holdout or production snafu.

Release Date: Sept. 4

Director: Mike Judge

Writer: Mike Judge

Starring: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons

Cinematographer: Tim Suhrstedt

Studio/Run Time: Miramax, 91 mins.

Mike Judge returns to the workplace

The new film from Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill) is a welcome addition to this year’s short list of funny movies. The offbeat humor comes at a steady pace, and while it never really turns into outright hilarity, it nurses a warm buzz from beginning to end.

Talk about dream casts. Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader have joined Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Paul, the road-trip comedy about a pair of sci-fi geeks who discover an alien in Area 51.

During a press junket for Universal's upcoming Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard told Maxim that the much-ballyhooed Arrested Development movie was, in fact, on its way to the silver screen.

Memo to actors: if you find yourself starring in a show alongside Jerry O'Connell, don't expect to be employed for long. Mr. Rebecca Romijn (O'Connell de-Stamos'ed her) will find himself on the short-end of the sitcom stick for the second straight time, with Entertainment Weekly reporting Fox has decided to cancel his Do Not Disturb vehicle after just three episodes.

Maybe it's due to his practiced penchant for oration (sometimes successful, sometimes not), but Ben Affleck has been tapped to play an ambulance-chasing lawyer in Mike Judge's upcoming live-action flick, Extract.

Release Date: July 2
Director: Peter Berg
Writers: Vy Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan
Cinematographer: Tobias Schliessler
Starring: Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron
Studio/Run Time: Columbia Pictures, 92 mins.

Perhaps the oddest take on superheroes that film has offered yet, Hancock (Will Smith) is a drunken crime fighter with publicity issues stemming from his tendency to constantly cause collateral damge. But after saving the life of Ray (Jason Bateman), he ends up back in the world’s good graces. Where it would be easy to take this premise and turn the film into a superhero version of Pursuit of Happyness, instead, Hancock manages to riff on its genre with both humor and truly unexpected, if somewhat bizarre, plot twists. While the film never quite reaches an Alan Moore-level deconstruction of the superhero mythos, it has a fun time offering up all the joy of a big-budget action movie without taking things too seriously. Hancock’s execution ultimately falls short of what it attempts, but the movie’s overall charm and willingness to stick to its guns makes it more than just a blockbuster cash-in.

Watch the trailer for Hancock:

Update: Jason Bateman dished yesterday on the status of the nearly-confirmed Arrested Development movie, bringing equal parts hope and despair:

"We all want to do it. All the actors want to do it, the writers want to do it, and the boss wants to do it. And they are working on making a deal, probably as we speak. But it's a long, sort of drawn-out, complicated business process. 'Arrested Development' is such a specific tone, it doesn't lend itself to mass appeal, as played out by the fact that it's canceled. So it has to be done for a price [...] So they have to shoot it for a small price, and we have to figure out if we can do it for that price. They're working it out, and hopefully we'll be able to know something in the next month."

Keep those balls in the air. Keep those balls in the air.

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Now the story of an amazing television show that got canceled, and the rabid fans who had no choice but to keep it all together. It's Arrested Development.

While King of the Hill  has been renewed once again, it seems that Mike Judge's mind is elsewhere these days. For once he's looking back, though, at his older creation, Beavis and Butthead, for inspiration.

Right now, if you search IMDb for Extract (Mike Judge’s newly-announced workplace-comedy starring Jason Bateman), the occasionally dubious website directs you to Beef Extract Room, supposedly a silent documentary short released in 1901. (“AKA Beef Extract Department. No. 1: Filling Jar,” it says, “One of approximately 60 short films produced by Selig for meat-packers Armour & Co.”) There are no memorable quotes.

So, until that gets fleshed out a bit more, here’s the basic information. Judge has written, and will direct the film, set to be the first project under the Beavis and Butthead/King of the Hill/Office Space creator’s production company, Ternion, co-formed with Blades of Glory writers (and former King of the Hill producers) John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky.

Bateman will of course fill the accessibly-attractive leading-man-at-the-end-of-his-rope role, familiar material for both him and Judge. O, what gauntlet of humiliation must our corporate 30-something hero maneuver this time? Hollywood Reporter writes: “Extract follows a flower extract plant owner (Bateman) dealing with workplace issues and a stream of bad luck, including his wife's affair with a gigolo.”

Mirimax will distribute it in North America at a to-be-determined date. In the meantime, ABC has bought 13 episodes of Ternion’s first television series, The Goode Family, which will air the first quarter of 2009, according to Variety.

Related links
Mike Judge on IMDb
Jason Bateman on IMDb
YouTube: The Office Space "printer scene"

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