There was so much talk about the movie and we thought, "Wouldn't it be great to still do the movie, but to give everybody this thing they didn't see coming?" Even with the number of episodes, it was reported that there was going to be 10 episodes, and then there was talk about adding more.

We mapped out the whole movie, and then worked backwards from that to do these shows. It might not be a movie. It might be something else.

There are elements of that, where you'll see a scene again and you'll recognize it, but I wouldn't say it's got one conceit like that, at all. It definitely has those jokes, but it would be wrong to say this is a show where, every time you see it, you see a new angle.

Well, at the time, you have to remember that we were not successful. The Showtime offer, as it was presented to me, was half the money for half the show. I was not interested, at that point, in doing a smaller cast and a more simplified Arrested Development.

Television is a very writer-driven business, and it's one of the few parts of entertainment where writers are treated with respect, only because they need you. If they didn't have to treat you with respect, they would be happy to dismiss you.

There are a lot of things that are in the show that harken back to the old show, but I really wanted to resist doing a greatest hits. It was irresistible to do a greatest hits, but it was almost too easy. There are things that I know are still ahead of us, in the future of whatever Arrested Development brings.

We started writing the shows in order, and then very quickly had to jump to, "Oh, we got Tony Hale today and Jessica [Walter." We've got to jump ahead and write that stuff that's in Jessica's show. Fortunately, we knew the story, but it was challenging.