Arrested Development's Will Arnett and Mitch Hurwitz are teaming up again on a comedy series, but this one will not be set in the latter's former hometown of Newport Beach but up the coast in Venice.
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Arrested Development and the OC-ification of America
Flaked does have something else in common with the last season of Arrested Development, as the home for both is Netflix, which also presents BoJack Horseman, the twisted animated series where Arnett plays the titular faded sitcom star/Equus ferus caballus.
“We're very excited to partner with Netflix–the home of original, original content–and the network I knew would be the ideal home for this passion project,” says Arnett in a Netflix statement about the eight-episode commitment for Flaked, which is to premiere in 2016.
Five-time Emmy nominee Arnett co-created and co-wrote Flaked with Mark Chappell, who wrote for and played “Officer Vagina” in an episode of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, which was co-created by Arnett's Arrested Development co-star David Cross and starred both.
Joining Arnett and Chappell as Flaked executive producers are Hurwitz, Peter Principato (who is also executive producer of the upcoming Wet Hot American Summer Netflix series) and Ben Silverman, a former producer of The Office. Principato and Silverman's respective companies Principato-Young and Electus are providing production services.
After the original three-season of Arrested Development on Fox, Arnett, Hurwitz and AD producer James Vallely co-created Running Wilde, which lasted a season on Fox.
In Flaked, Arnett will play Chip, a self-appointed Venice “guru” who falls for the object of his best friend's fascination. “Soon the tangled web of half-truths and semi-bullshit that underpins his all-important image and sobriety begins to unravel,” says the Netflix announcement.
“We are thrilled to be the home of Will Arnett's next series, and look forward to Chip joining his repertoire alongside such diverse and inspirational characters such as Gob, Bojack and Batman,” adds Cindy Holland, Netflix vice president of Original Content. (Arnett played Batman in The Lego Movie.)
Meanwhile, the new project will not drive a stake in the heart of a hoped-for Arrested Development fifth season and/or movie. “I've been very optimistic about how it all comes together,” Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said of the possibility during the Television Critics Association 2015 winter press tour earlier this month.
We may have to wait awhile, he added.
“It's, as you can imagine, an incredibly complicated show considering how busy the entire cast is and trying to line up schedules and trying to line up the talent to do it,” said Sarandos, quickly noting that everyone involved is “trying to make it happen and we're trying to make it happen on a time-schedule that works for everybody.”
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.