A new article, published this week in The Wall Street Journal, has more information on the upcoming Arrested Development Documentary Project, including an interview with the creators.

Three years ago, Fox pulled the plug on Arrested Development, a show that won over critics and award jurors — but not the masses.

Two die-hard fans of the sitcom, Neil Lieberman and Jeff Smith, were not ready to let go. So the duo — a director of data integration and a video editor, by trade — decided to make a documentary about the “brilliant, witty and original comedy” to “provide awareness and education” to the unacquainted. Digging deep into their pockets, the two pals charged over $20,000 on their credit cards to travel to 17 cities across the U.S., Canada and even across the pond to London to interview more than 200 other hardcore fans.

Not that Arrested Development: The Documentary is just some obsessive-fan mash note. Lieberman and Smith also scored 35 interviews with the show’s cast and crew, including stars Jason Bateman, who played straight man Michael Bluth, as well as David Cross, Portia de Rossi, and even executive producer/wry narrator Ron Howard, who all reminisced about their days on set.

The result? A 90-minute long documentary touting the joys of frozen banana stands, Wee Britain and Bob Loblaw — but no distribution deals in sight.

Speakeasy recently spoke to the duo to see how deep their A.D. obsession lay.

Wall Street Journal: Why are you obsessed with Arrested Development?
Jeff Smith: Have you seen the show?

Yes.
Jeff: Then you’ll know it’s a one of a kind show. It’s not King of Queens or Two and A Half Men, where every joke is on one level. There’s a whole additional layer to Arrested Development jokes.

So why are you doing this documentary?
Jeff: We felt like the show never got a fair chance. As much as this is an homage to the show, we’re doing also it to get more fans.
Neil: We were doing our normal quoting of the show [on a trip last year] and Jeff suggested we interview fans of the show.
Jeff: We had a friend build the Web site for us. And then we blindly put it on the Internet — Craigslist, Friendster, you name it. Slowly people started popping up. We picked places to go based on how many responses we got from each city.

In total, you guys interviewed about 200 fans of the show. What did you learn?
Neil: Unsurpisingly, fans are just so eager to talk about the show. They were cut off and so any chance to sit down and talk about it again made them happy — even if we were just talking about the same thing over and over again.

Who were the most interesting people you came across?
Neil: One fan had frozen bananas and a banner hanging on the wall of their apartment. [During the interview,] they even took out a Franklin puppet. They went out of their way to talk to us about this.

You also interviewed the cast and Ron Howard. What was their reaction to learning about your film?
Jeff: They’re stars and they obviously wouldn’t have talked to us if they didn’t like working on it so much.
Neil: They loved working on the show. They want more of it. A lot of their careers have moved on from this. But the fact of the matter is that it’s something they want to do.

But you couldn’t get Michael Cera or Jessica Walters.
Jeff: Michael Cera is pretty damn busy these days and Jessica’s schedule didn’t work out. Portia only fell into our laps a few weeks ago.

Were you able to interview anyone from Fox?
Neil: We spoke to Joel Hornstock, who’s Senior VP of Production for Television. He basically gave us the information of why the show went off the air. It was all ratings. But that does not mean that he wasn’t fully behind the show. He loved it. To him we’re nobody. But he was very willing to tell us his thoughts.
Jeff: We wanted the bad guy side of things.

Fingers crossed for a movie?
Jeff: That’s all we can hope for.
Neil: Everytime you can see the Bluths, any little bit, it’s awesome.

As we previously reported, Portia made a brief appearance onstage during Ellen's Bigger Longer and Wider Show, shot earlier this month in Chicago. During the audience questions portion of the show, one audience member asked where Portia was and she briefly appeared from backstage. A video is finally online, courtesy of TBS. Click here, or on the image below, to view the footage.

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