Netflix Could Order Season 5 Of ‘Arrested Development’

Arrested Development could be getting another season on Netflix if the stars and writers agree to return.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told CNBC that, if all the cast members are able find time to film new episodes, a fifth season of the show is possible.

After being off the air since 2006, Arrested Development finally returned with 15 new episodes, all available for immediate streaming on Netflix, this past weekend. The majority of the original cast returned for the fourth season, including all of the Bluth and Funke family members.

“We’ve had very high expectations from the beginning for Arrested Development. It’s got a well-known brand, and it met all of those expectations. It’s been huge, just as we had hoped,” Hastings said. He wouldn’t say how many people streamed the new episodes over the weekend, but said that it wasn’t something the company was too focused on.

“Netflix is about being able to watch when you want. So we’re really not focused on the Day 1 ratings, it’s really over the first year,” he said.

Procera, a network intelligence company, indicated that 10 percent of Netflix subscribers had watched the entire fourth season by Monday. Peak Web traffic for the site was up 10 percent from the previous week, which Procera attributed to Arrested Development.

What makes Hastings’ comments particularly interesting, however, is the fact that the fourth season has been said to to set up an Arrested Development movie, which was also hinted at in the season 3 finale. This was again confirmed by Jason Bateman, who said creator Mitch Hurwitz wanted to wrap up the Bluth family saga once and for all.

If the fate of a fifth season rests on cast availability, would that eliminate the chances of a movie, or would both options still be on the table? And which would come first, new episodes or a full-length film?

Do you want to see a fifth season of Arrested Development?