RICK & MORTY Movie Reportedly in the Works as Adult Swim Eyes the Big Screen
Fans of Rick & Morty have spent years wondering if the animated sci-fi chaos machine would eventually make the jump from Adult Swim to theaters, and now it sounds like that might finally be happening.
A new report from The Insneider claims that a Rick & Morty movie is starting to come together after years of conversations and false starts. According to the report, series director Jacob Hair has reportedly been in talks with Warner Bros. about developing a feature film set within the wildly unpredictable Adult Swim universe.
Nothing has been officially announced yet, but Hair feels like a natural choice if the studio wants someone who already understands the DNA of the series.
He directed several fan-favorite episodes across seasons four through eight, including “The Vat of Acid Episode,” “Rickmurai Jack,” “Night Family,” “Unmortricken,” and “Valkyrick.” That’s a pretty killer résumé if Warner Bros. wants the movie to feel like an authentic extension of the show.
Rick & Morty is about to launch its ninth season later this month, and Adult Swim already has the series locked in through at least season twelve. The franchise is still one of the biggest animation brands on television, so expanding it into movies feels like the next logical move.
Series co-creator Dan Harmon has talked openly about the possibility of a film before, and his idea for it actually sounds pretty refreshing. Rather than reinventing the series or turning it into some massive continuity-shifting event, Harmon wants the movie to basically feel like the ultimate supersized episode.
In a 2023 interview Harmon explained: “My philosophy would be to just take a Rick and Morty adventure, and spend a bunch of extra money on it and make it 90 minutes long. Not to try to earn its feature status by virtue of canonical dramatic tone shifts or anything like that, but rather to just make it a super badass episode of Rick and Morty.”
Rick & Morty works best when it’s throwing viewers into insane multiverse disasters, existential meltdowns, and grotesque alien nonsense at full speed. Stretching that formula into one giant cinematic adventure could be awesome if the creative team keeps the same energy that made the series explode in popularity in the first place.
Things got even more hilarious when Harmon revealed that Zack Snyder apparently expressed interest in helping make the movie happen. Harmon said:
“He was totally a super fan and was just like, ‘Is there any way I can help get that movie started by using my Snyder-ness? So, the Rick and Morty movie is coming as soon as Zack Snyder gets back from his vacation, because I want to start with a Snyder cut of that movie, and then I want to do the director’s cut of a Snyder cut release, so we can just have a six-hour Rick and Morty movie, and three hours of it is in black and white.”
A six-hour black-and-white Rick & Morty movie might completely destroy the human brain, but honestly, it also sounds exactly like the kind of absurd meta joke this franchise would commit to.
Until Warner Bros. or Adult Swim officially confirms the project, fans should probably keep expectations in check. Still, with the show continuing to dominate animation and longtime creatives reportedly discussing the film again, this feels like the closest the Rick & Morty movie has ever been to becoming real.