Hulu battling Netflix for rights to the Arrested Development miniseries

Earlier this week it was reported that the “Arrested Development” team was officially reteaming for a limited-run TV series that would lead into the long-awaited feature film. At the time, it was reported that Showtime and Netflix were in the running to develop the series. But now, Hulu has entered the fray and has sparked a fierce bidding war.

Hulu clearly views itself as an up-and-coming rival to Netflix and their online streaming service. Each is developing their own original content – Netflix with Kevin Spacey and David Fincher, and Hulu with Morgan Spurlock – and both would love to have a high-profile project like “Arrested Development” to bring in new subscribers.

After news broke this weekend, Hulu immediately got in touch with representatives for series creator Mitch Hurwitz and 20th Century Fox Television and mad ea pitch for their services. Hulu is promoting the fact that “Arrested Development” videos have gotten over 100 million impressions on their site since 2008.

Showtime seems to have taken a backseat to aggressive pitches from Hulu and Netflix who are now locked in a bidding war for a series Fox canceled in 2006. Speaking of Fox, why aren’t they more interested? Vulture reports that the network itself doesn’t have room on its schedule and sister channel FX has had no talks about picking up because of its cost and limited-run.

All that said, Fox will likely wind up splitting the production costs as Fox Searchlight still owns the rights to the eventual movie and since the series and film would likely be shot around the same time, the TV and film budgets would be combined.

So who’d you rather win this war? Do you have a preference between Hulu and Netflix?