Now that we know the Netflix-backed Arrested Development project is not just a trick (illusion, illusion!) but actually confirmed, there are finally a few answers to the question of what we can expect from it.  According to Ron Howard, who acts as the show’s narrator, the new season will include some new characters.

There’s been plenty of hype building up thanks to the show’s stars keeping fans on the hook with photos from the set, including Tobias (David Cross) in a sheet and George Michael (Michael Cera) on a segway.  And despite what Howard called a “hell of a hiatus,” he has also reassured fans that the show’s quality is still top-notch (as if those photos suggested anything otherwise). For more on what Howard said of the upcoming season, hit the jump.

The Arrested Development run of ten episodes that will air on Netflix is set to start filming tomorrow.  We’ve been counting the days until the moment and it is finally upon us!  Deadline reports that the entire original cast of Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, David Cross, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat and Tony Hale will be returning along with Ron Howard in his capacity as a narrator.  That’s one character per episode, which may factor into the idea that each episode will focus on one of the Bluths, likely with multiple characters in certain episodes. (Could we get an episode all about the narrator, maybe?)

Production is expected to continue into the fall.  Creator Mitch Hurwitz is open to an additional season if the first run proves successful.  Netflix has said they’ll release all ten episodes at the same time on an unspecified day in 2013.

The first trailer for the family comedy The Oranges has been released.  The film centers on two families who are both best friends and neighbors.  Their tight relationship is strained when it’s discovered that the father of one family (Hugh Laurie) is having an affair with the grown daughter of the other family (Leighton Meester).  The film looks like a pretty great comedy, and Allison Janney is unsurprisingly fantastic.  The cast—which includes Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Alia Shawkat. and Adam Brody—has great chemistry, and director Julian Farino appears to have crafted a solid comedy.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The Oranges opens later this year.

According to series writer and co-executive producer Dean Lorey, the entire original cast of the Emmy-winning series Arrested Development will be returning for the new episodes in 2013. While this should have gone without saying once it was reported that Netflix had picked up the exclusive broadcast rights, it’s nice to get some confirmation from the show-runners since information has been hard to come by. Lorey himself said that “even the schedule is being kept under wraps.” Reprising their roles from the first run will be Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Michael Cera, Tony Hale, Jeffrey Tambor, David Cross, Alia Shawkat and Jessica Walter, although there are still no formal deals in place.

On his blog, Lorey commented that he is penning a new season along with Mitch Hurwitz and Jim Vallely and will begin shooting in 2012. There is still no word as to the exact number of episodes, only that it was suggested to do a 9 or 10 episode season to bridge the old series to (hopefully) a feature film. Hit the jump for more.

If you grew up in the 90s, odds are you spent countless hours enjoying the glorious original programming of Nickelodeon. While shows like The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Salute Your Shorts were definitely staples of my sophisticated Nickelodeon line-up, Rugrats was my rock. The animated series provided a goofy—and at times incredibly odd—look at life through the eyes of a group of toddlers. The loveable characters made for can’t-miss TV, and now Funny or Die has put together a rather disturbing trailer for a live-action version of the show.

The trailer takes the Requiem for a Dream approach with Rugrats and turns them all into psychopaths. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Parenthood star Mae Whitman plays Angelica (obviously), and she’s joined by Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), Michael Angarano (Almost Famous, Red State), and Whitman’s Parenthood co-star Sarah Ramos. Hit the jump to watch the incredibly dark trailer.

Expensive suits.  Quasi-incestuous relationships. Carl Weathers.  Minor Treason.  It’s been nearly six years since the Bluth family brought good wholesome entertainment into America’s living rooms.  But finally, after years of fan demand and seemingly endless rumors, new episodes of Arrested Development are returning to television in 2013.  Provided, of course, that television has Netflix.

Like Family Guy and Futurama before, Twentieth Century Fox is bringing back the critically-acclaimed sitcom (Time Magazine called it one of the best TV shows of ALL-TIME)  for a brand new season in 2013.  But unlike its animated counterparts, fresh episodes of Arrested Development will be broadcast exclusively on Netflix.  We told you back in March that Netflix would host original content with Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards, and while Development isn’t technically a Netflix original, the new episodes are surely the rental service’s highest-profile project to date.   Hit the jump for more on AD’s return.

We’ve got the first images and synopsis for the drama The Brass Teapot from the American Film Market. The pic centers on a young broke couple who steal a teapot that produces cash whenever someone feels pain. Juno Temple (The Dark Knight Rises) and Michael Angarano (Red State) star as the young couple, with Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) rounding out the cast. Written by Tim Macy, the film was directed by Ramaa Mosley. Hit the jump to check out the images and synopsis. [Update: We've removed the images at the request of the studio.]

Earlier today, a tweet from The New Yorker, reporting straight from their own festival in New York, announced the unthinkable as Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz revealed during a cast reunion that the series would be back for another season, but that’s not all. This new season would lead directly into the long-gestating movie that has been talked about by each cast member, every other month, since the invention of television. Since that tweet, more details have surfaced from the festival from EW who reveals that Hurwitz intends to shoot 9 to 10 episodes, each focusing on on an individual character from the Bluth clan (which includes Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Portia DeRossi, David Cross, Will Arnett, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Tony Hale, and Alia Shawkat). Each episode will catch audiences up on what the characters have been doing for the past five years since the series’ cancellation in 2006. More details on the new season and the forthcoming movie after the jump.

[Update: The entire 100-minute reunion Arrested Development reunion panel is now available for your viewing pleasure after the jump; we've also added an interview with Ron Howard where he talks about how the new season will relate to the movie]

It turns out it’s possible to get the cast of Arrested Development to reunite, or at least reunite for one evening.  Gothamist [via The Playlist] reports that Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter will take the stage with Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz on October 2nd for a special panel.  I’m sure they’ll talk about free trade agreements, the philosophical merits of Kant and Heidegger, and other topics.  I doubt anyone will bring up the Arrested Development movie.  Who wants to hear about that?

In all seriousness, wouldn’t it be awesome if this is how they chose to announce that the film has a greenlight and firm start date?  It’s a bit of a long shot, but either way, you’d be crazy not to try and get into this event.  Tickets go on sale tomorrow at noon.  Unfortunately, there’s no discount if you blue yourself.

Two new roles to report for Alia Shawkat tonight.  Shawkat is the latest to join the cast of He Loves Me, following in the talented footsteps of Paul Dano, Annette Bening, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Antonio Banderas, Deborah Ann Woll, Steve Coogan, Toni Trucks, and Elliott Gould.  Dano stars as “a once-great novelist who’s creativity is blocked due to heartache and loneliness.”  He writes about a new character, his dream girl (played by Kazan), to overcome his writer’s block and somehow wills her into existence.  Shawkat will play Mabel, “a cute hipster who has a crush on Dano’s character and is obsessed with one of his literary creations.”  Directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (Little Miss Sunshine), He Loves Me is currently in production in Los Angeles.

Hit the jump for more on the second movie, The Brass Teapot.

Wrapping up our coverage of new images from movies premiering at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival (at least for now since I’m sure more are on the way), we have the first images from Julian Farino’s The Oranges (starring Hugh Laurie, Leighton Meester, and Adam Brody), Lasse Hallstrom’s Salmon Fishing in Yemen (starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt), and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Woman in the Fifth (starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke).

Hit the jump to check out all of the images.  We’ve also provided the synopses.  The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8th – 18th.  For all the new TIFF images we’ve posted, click here.

With director James Gunn’s superhero flick Super opening this weekend, I recently got to sit down with Ellen Page to talk about how she got involved with the project.  As you might expect from Gunn (Slither, PG-Porn), the film is violent, twisted, and darkly comic.  During the interview, Page talked about the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, what’s her karaoke song, does she have an opinion on the ending of Inception, the violence in Super, upcoming projects like Freeheld (which will be written by Ron Nyswaner) and Stitch and Bitch with Alia Shawkat.

Finally, if you’re a fan of Page, you definitely need to see Super.  The reason I say this is you’ve never seen Page like this.  When I saw Super, she had the entire theater laughing at some of the insane stuff she does on screen.  It was great.  Hit the jump to watch the interview:

Yesterday, we reported that a stellar cast was joining the outstanding Aubrey Plaza in Maggie Carey’s comedy The Hand Job.  A cast that includes Plaza, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Donald Glover, Connie Britton, Mae Whitman, Alia Shawkat, Johnny Simmons, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse is already a must-see.  But now Variety is reporting that more talented actors have signed on.  The cast will now include Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights) and Mystery Team co-stars and co-writers Dominic Dierkes and DC Pierson.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, The Hand Job stars Plaza as a valedictorian who wants to become more sexually experienced before she heads to college.  While we reported the majority of the current cast yesterday, we now know which roles they’ll be playing.  Hit the jump for more.

Steve recently spoke with actor and writer Bill Hader about his upcoming projects.  One movie he might try to shoot while he’s on hiatus from Saturday Night Live is his wife’s Maggie Carey’s script, The Hand Job.  The script landed on the 2009 Black List (a list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood) and we reported back in October that Aubrey Plaza was attached to play the lead role of a 17-year-old who wants to learn about various sexual activities before she goes to college.  Hader says that he, Andy Samberg, Donald Glover, Connie Britton, Alia Shawkat, Mae Whitman, and Johnny Simmons are attached to co-star, and if that cast doesn’t make you excited, then you must not recognize these actors by name.  You should work on that.

Hit the jump for what Hader told Steve about the project as well as a more dramatic film he may do called The Skeleton Twins with Anna Faris and Mark Duplass.  Click here for what Hader had to say about his SNL character “Stefon”, and be sure to check back later today for more of Steve’s interview with Hader.

UPDATE:  Steve here.  Just spoke to Bill Hader again and he told me that Chris Mintz-Plasse is now attached to Hand Job as well!  Hope this thing gets made this summer.

Fox Searchlight has sent over 5 clips from director Miguel Arteta’s (Youth in Revolt) Cedar Rapids.  Starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, Stephen Root, Kurtwood Smith, Alia Shawkat, Mike O’Malley, Rob Corddry, and Seth Morris, the film’s about a small-town Wisconsin man who travels to the big city to represent his company at a regional insurance conference.  While the story isn’t groundbreaking, or something that you haven’t seen before, I thought the movie was really funny and it’s definitely worth checking out when it gets released February 11. The main reason is the chemistry between Helms, Reilly, Heche, and Whitlock Jr. Each one had a moment to shine and Whitlock Jr. got two of the biggest laughs during the premiere at Sundance.  However, John C. Reilly also has a few awesome lines that I loved.

Anyway, for a taste of the film, hit the jump for the clips.  And if you missed my extended video interview with Ed Helms at Sundance last week, click here.