Ben Stiller returning to 'Arrested Development' for Netflix revival

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It looks like Ben Stiller will be adding a little more Wonder to "Arrested Development."

"Night at the Museum" star Stiller has signed on to return for the upcoming season of "Arrested Development" for an episode, a spokeswoman for Netflix told TheWrap on Tuesday.

While Netflix would not confirm character details, which has generally been the case for guest stars on the upcoming season of "Arrested Development," it's a pretty safe bet that Stiller will reprise his role as magician Tony Wonder, a character he portrayed on two episodes of the series during its original Fox run.

Stiller joins a swelling list of guest stars for the revival that includes Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, "Mad Men" star John Slattery and Conan O'Brien. Henry Winkler and Liza Minnelli have also signed on to reprise their roles as Bluth family attorney Barry Zuckerkorn and Lucille Austero, respectively.

The show might as well pack in as many guest stars as it can - the 14-episode season, which will premiere in its entirety on Netflix in May, will likely be the final one, at least on Netflix.

Speaking at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco on Monday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said, "It's a fantastic one-off ... Think about it as a non-repeatable amazing."

EW.com first reported the news of Stiller's "Arrested Development" return.

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Sorry 'Arrested Development' fans, Netflix series is probably a 'One-Off'

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - "Arrested Development" fans who want the show to come back for good had better start looking for someone to help them out. Netflix will release the fourth season of the show in May, but CEO Reed Hastings said that's all his company has signed up for.

Speaking at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco on Monday, Hastings said he didn't anticipate being able to do season five, six or seven - just the forthcoming fourth season.

"It's a fantastic one-off," Hastings said, citing his company's lack of control over the Fox and Imagine-produced show. "Think about it as a non-repeatable amazing."

Despite its passionate audience, the critically beloved comedy was canceled by Fox in 2006 after three seasons due to low ratings. Years later, Netflix stepped in to distribute a new season.

Creator Mitchell Hurwitz said this month at AllThingsD's Dive Into Media conference that Netflix was one of the only places where the show could live. A movie, he said, would be too difficult because time has passed since the show last aired, but releasing the show all at once, as Netflix will do, enabled him to film around his actors' schedules.

Hastings on Monday tried to downplay the importance of original shows to Netflix's bottom line while concurrently recognizing that they were essential to its future. Netflix, which just released the "House of Cards," has several new shows coming this year, including Eli Roth's "Hemlock Grove" and Jenji Kohan's "Orange is the New Black."

"It may be the center of the PR for a while and that's OK, but i don't want you guys to think that suddenly we're the original content company," Hastings said.

Companies like Hulu and Amazon are also investing in original programming, and Hastings compared them all to successful cable channels, such as HBO, Showtime, FX and Starz. Yet only one can be HBO.

"We want to be HBO," Hastings said. "And let others be the smaller ones."

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