Just about every successful actor on the planet has that one film or TV show that can be considered their big breakout role. Modern Hollywood icon Brad Pitt, for instance, was barely known before his star-turn performance in Thelma and Louise by Ridley Scott in 1991.
Chris Pratt found prominence for his role as Andy Dwyer on Parks & Recreation, the same way Sandra Bullock did in Speed and Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street.
For TV superstar Jason Bateman, that watershed moment of his career came in the Fox sitcom Arrested Development, where he portrayed the leading character, Michael Bluth. The series only ran for an original three seasons until 2006, but Bateman got to reprise the role in a two-season revival on Netflix starting 2013.
The New Yorker has also enjoyed another acclaimed part on a Netflix show in recent years: he portrays Marty Byrde in the crime-drama Ozark, a role that earns him as much as $300,000 per episode.
Ozark and Arrested Development are two shows from completely different genres, but it seems that fans are convinced that Bateman's roles on both are somehow interconnected. The actor has also had his say about it.
'Arrested Development' And 'Ozark' Share Similar Tropes
According to IMDb, Arrested Development is the story of 'Michael Bluth, a widower with a 13-year-old son named George-Michael. [The son] is forced to keep his large and dysfunctional family together after his father is arrested for shifty accounting practices at the family-owned conglomerate and the Bluth family assets are frozen, making each member of the eccentric family panic.'
Similar tropes of family suffering induced by poor patriarchal decisions can be found in Ozark. An online synopsis of the show reads, 'Marty Byrde is a Chicago financial advisor who also serves as the top money launderer for the second largest drug cartel in Mexico.'
'When things go awry, Marty must uproot his family from the skyscrapers of Chicago and relocate to the lazy lake region of the Missouri Ozarks.'
The first, ten-episode season of the show was first released on Netflix in July 2017. Not too long after, the first conversations around the similarities between Marty and Michael started to pop up on social media.
'Hey folks, is it just me or [do] both Marty and Michael have really similar traits?,' one user posed on Reddit.
Jason Bateman Can See The Similarities Between Marty And Michael
Other fans were quick to pick on the conversation and immediately chimed in to support the argument.
'Wow, great point! This is extremely obvious now that you point it out, but I had not noticed until now. I've introduced [my significant other to] Arrested while watching Ozark,' one fan wrote, while also joking, 'Can't wait to make this point to her... I may or may not take full credit!'
One SilasX also agreed, saying, 'Yeah, I'd long felt the same way. The character is 'the responsible father exhausted at the stupidity around him, who feels he has to make the hard decisions that others won't.''
'This is amazing. You deserve gold, but I am poor,' another one fan quipped. The argument about these parallels has managed to live on just as long as Ozark, whose first half of its fourth and final season was released this month.
The question was in fact put to Bateman recently, and he admitted that he did see similarities. "I think they have similar blind spots," he said. "Their arrogance and hubris leads to early decisions."
Jason Bateman Nearly Lost His Career Before 'Arrested Development'
Bateman made the comments in conversation with the Guardian newspaper, where he also referred to a fallow period in his career in the '90s, prior to his stint on Arrested Development.
He explained how this stretch of time was marred by too much partying, something which almost cost him his career. "Having [originally] thought, 'This is really fun,' and staying at the party a little bit too long, I'd lost my place in line in the business," Bateman said.
"It was a case of trying to claw that back towards the end of the 90s, and not getting a lot of great responses." Things finally looked up for the actor when he auditioned for the part on Arrested Development, and Fox immediately loved him for it.
By the time he was featuring in the first episode of Ozark, things had taken quite a different complexion. Not only is he the star of the show, he has directed multiple episodes and also serves as executive producer.
With such massive influence on the series, it is no wonder fans are seeing similarities with one of his older roles.
