RICK AND MORTY: Dan Harmon Speaks Out On Recasting Justin Roiland And Pre-Strike Plans For A Movie

RICK AND MORTY: Dan Harmon Speaks Out On Recasting Justin Roiland And Pre-Strike Plans For A Movie

Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon has broken his silence on the accusations faced by Justin Roiland, commenting on recasting the show's leads and plans that were in place for a movie pre-WGA strike.

By JoshWilding - Sep 28, 2023 07:09 PM EST
Filed Under: Rick and Morty
Source: THR (via SFFGazette.com)

Rick and Morty was dreamed up by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, though the latter ended up being fired from the series earlier this year after alleged sexual misconduct. 

After briefly facing police charges, the floodgates opened and Roiland's reputation was damaged beyond repair. It's understandably difficult to imagine him bouncing back from what's been said, particularly after shocking claims he used his fame to proposition teenage girls (some of whom were allegedly as young as 16). 

Soundalikes have been cast as Rick and Morty's title characters moving forward and Harmon has finally opened up about the end of his and Roiland's friendship in a new profile with The Hollywood Reporter (via SFFGazette.com). 

It sounds like it started falling apart when Harmon decided to bring in a number of writers he'd worked with on Community to give the hit animated series some structure. Roiland felt pushed out and grew bitter as his partner became the creative driving force behind the Adult Swim series. 

Roiland's behaviour behind the scenes was every bit as bizarre as we've heard as the trade spoke with former Adult Swim boss Mike Lazzo who reveals, "Dan would be in the writers room and Justin would be running radio control cars around the studio."

After reuniting to agree on the landmark deal for an additional 70 episodes of Rick and Morty, the relationship improved but only for a short while. In fact, the last time they spoke was by text in 2019. 

"He said things that he’d never said before about being unhappy, and I remember saying to him the last time we spoke in person, like, 'I am worried about you, and I don’t know what to do about that except to give you all the string and also just say I’m scared that you’re not going to come back.' But then this conversation became unprecedentedly confrontational."

When those accusations came out earlier this year, Harmon says he initially chose not to comment and decided to take a backseat in recasting Rick and Morty with who the trade calls "two young, unknown voice actors." Their identity is expected to remain a secret until the season 7 premiere next month.

"It’s all just sad because the goal is for it to be indistinguishable," he says. "At the same time, it would be absurd to suddenly decide that the entire foundation of your creative project was, oh, coincidentally, unimportant."

Despite acknowledging the importance of Roiland's contributions to the animated series, Harmon feels he can no longer remain silent when asked about the misconduct accusations, especially after the latest round painted a dark picture of what was happening. 

"The easiest thing for me to say about Justin has been nothing. Easy because he isolated so well and easy because I’m nobody’s first choice as a judge of anything or anyone. This is where I’d love to change the subject to myself, to what a piece of crap I’ve been my whole public life. I would feel so safe and comfortable making this about me, but that trick is worthless here and dangerous to others."

"It’s other people’s safety and comfort that got damaged while I obsessed over a cartoon’s quality. Trust has now been violated between countless people and a show designed to please them. I’m frustrated, ashamed and heartbroken that a lot of hard work, joy and passion can be leveraged to exploit and harm strangers."

Harmon has now appointed a showrunner in Scott Marder and hopes Rick and Morty will have the same longevity as The Simpsons. Prior to the WGA strike, he'd even had "serious" conversations with Warner Bros. executives about a movie that would have a "super episode" conceit similar to South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

With the strike over, we're hoping work on the Rick and Morty movie will now resume. In the meantime, let us know your thought on this news in the comments section.

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SATW42
SATW42 - 9/28/2023, 7:43 PM
Just here for the roiland cuck tears
TheLight
TheLight - 9/28/2023, 7:57 PM
dracula
dracula - 9/28/2023, 8:08 PM
Havent watched this show since season 3

And the only episode i really liked of that season was the first episode

Wonder when Harmon is going to get to filming The Community movie. Was suppose to happen this year but then the strikes delayed it.

Its almost complete
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Blergh
Blergh - 9/29/2023, 9:26 AM
@dracula - I really hope it happens...
DanFlashesShirt
DanFlashesShirt - 9/29/2023, 9:29 AM
@dracula - season 4 may have been the best one
kazuma
kazuma - 9/28/2023, 8:29 PM
IDC. I don't watch the show. But Why was none of this said before? Seems like bs pile up for zero reason.
philinterrupted
philinterrupted - 9/28/2023, 8:56 PM
This is a show that took me a lot of tries to get into. There was a fan base that truly turned me off to it.

I think those people still suck but I do love the show.

I’m sure everything will be fine with the new voice actors.
Blergh
Blergh - 9/29/2023, 9:29 AM
@philinterrupted - the show itself is great, it's the fanbase that made it unbearable at times. Taking the wrong lessons, acting like it's some highly philosophical character study of edge-lord Rick instead of just being really creative sci-fi with charcter growth.
Got back into it by Season 4 when the hype train died down and I didn't need to listen to 20 kids screaming "I'm just like Rick, an alcoholic genius that's super depressed" in unisono.
philinterrupted
philinterrupted - 9/29/2023, 3:03 PM
@Blergh - it’s funny, the very people the made me not want to watch it tell me they don’t like it anymore.

My issues at first were the voices of Rick and Morty actually. Couldn’t stand it. I learned to get past it and enjoy the sci-fi which is exactly the type of show I’d be into.

I’m glad the Szechuan Sauce Squad and the Pickle Rick cucks have all moved on.
Order66
Order66 - 9/28/2023, 10:46 PM
One of the greatest animations of all time. Idc what people say. I love this show and it’s hilarious to me.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 9/29/2023, 1:28 AM
"Harmon has now appointed a showrunner in Scott Marder and hopes Rick and Morty will have the same longevity as The Simpsons."

Out of all things in the article, this actually gets my attention. I knew a 100 episodes was a given, but multiple decades of animation being the goal is surprising. Wonder how long they can keep it going without getting stale (like The Simpsons).
VictorAlonzo
VictorAlonzo - 9/29/2023, 2:15 AM
Rick & Morty is a classic. They've delayed themselves out of the top tier momementum of popularity, but one season can turn it around. Here's hoping the next is the best.
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 9/29/2023, 6:19 AM
@VictorAlonzo - They were waning in popularity. And I think this was just the worst timing for something like this to happen.
Sounds like Dan Harmon's plan is to reboot and quietly step away while the show gets franchised to the full extent.

It'll stick around and have an audience like Simpsons or Family Guy or even South Park, but the Honeymoon is over and now the married couple have separate bedrooms and are getting old and boring.

I don't think it'll have the same spark of excitement anymore. It's part of the furniture like Simpsons now. It's the old dog sleeping in the corner, not the frantic puppy jumping out the christmas wrapping paper with a ribbon tied around it.
Clintthahamster
Clintthahamster - 9/29/2023, 7:10 AM
@VictorAlonzo - There were 1.5-2 year gaps between the first four seasons. They'll be fine.
Chaos200
Chaos200 - 9/29/2023, 3:13 AM
Simpsons doesn't have an overarching story and continuity, Rick and Morty does, gonna be hard to keep that going for infinite seasons.
Twenty23Three
Twenty23Three - 9/29/2023, 5:10 AM
@Chaos200 - the overarching story is the least interesting part of Rick and Morty. They can easily move on past it
Chaos200
Chaos200 - 9/29/2023, 9:48 AM
@Twenty23Three - Then watch the viewership die, the most talked about parts of Rick and Morty online is Evil Morty Rick's original Morty? Why is Prime Rick so evil and smarter than everyone else? What is it outside the central finite curve, Why did C137 Rick refuse the portal gun? All of those questions were/are is what people like. Once all of that is done with there's not much left.

And then there's the character development like Beth becoming more her own person not relying on her fathers love to exist.
Summer becoming smarter and showing she's actually more like her grandfather than we/she thinks.
Morty becoming more confident, competent getting older, growing out of Rick's shadow and becoming possibly closer to what Evil Morty is

And Rick growing from Nihalism to caring more about life and family and dare I say love.

The Simpsons and South Park do not have this, thus can have a story and start all over agains from square one. Homer will be forever dumb, Marge forever neurotic, and Bart forever mischievous and Lisa forever smart and neurotic like her mum. Whatever development The Simpsons gets, it's reverted back to default by the next adventure. Not the same for Rick and Morty and something liike that needs a definitive ending otherwise it gets stale.

Except weakly written social commentary with poop jokes. Ya'll think people want sperm babies episodes
Twenty23Three
Twenty23Three - 9/29/2023, 11:33 AM
@Chaos200 - ok, so you’re clearly a lot more invested in all this than most. However anyone I’ve ever spoken to doesn’t really care about a lot of that stuff. It’s fun sure but it’s not the reason they’re watching
Chaos200
Chaos200 - 9/30/2023, 2:22 AM
@Twenty23Three - Adult Swim posting lore stuff like this probably doesn't help. Most people that watch Rick and Morty enjoy the whimsical multiveresal sci fi shenanigans sure, some people find the poop jokes amazing sure, but I know what makes Rick and Morty stand out from the rest is the lore and if it loses that it loses it's uniqueness that makes it stand out from the Futureramas, Simpsons and South Parks. Adult Swim posting stuff like this instead of Rick turning himself into an arm shows they know what majority of the fans want.(Morty being uninterested in Rick turning into an arm looks to be an allegory for the fans getting bored of that shit in the trailer)


ProfessorWhy
ProfessorWhy - 9/29/2023, 3:36 AM
Television used to be horrible, now it's impossible to watch everything you'd like to give a chance to. Listening to little hipsters berate a program like R & M makes me sick to my stomach
SpaceAgent
SpaceAgent - 9/29/2023, 4:50 AM
Just give us the Community movie.

ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 9/29/2023, 6:22 AM
Did I hear right? Are they removing his creator credit? That's a big no, no. I don't care if you're Adolf [frick]ing Satan, you don't do that.
Blergh
Blergh - 9/29/2023, 9:26 AM
@ObserverIO - It's revisionist but an understandable step. The show is trainted by Roiland's behavior and AS now needs to distance the show as far from him as possible to avoid further damage.

It might be a big no-no for you but it's what Adult Swim considers the best course of action to keep the show alive and by extention the jobs of an entire studio dedicated to the show's creation.
Roiland threatened livelihoods, these livelihoods deserve to be protected by whatever means neccessary.

My personal feelings on removing a creator's name aren't positive as well but it's to protect jobs, so I'm not going to judge too harshly here.
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 9/29/2023, 10:56 AM
@Blergh - I guess so. Just feels very corporate and fake. But that's probably just because of it being corporate and fake, lol. If it were me I'd remove both creator credits rather than the revisionist history of this being created solely by Dan Harmon.
Blergh
Blergh - 9/29/2023, 9:22 AM
Harmon's comments are exactly what I expected, self-reflected and evasive on the actual subject.
Dan has shown similar behavior himself in the past towards Meg Ganz, while he did own up to it and admitted his faults that stain will always accompany him.
It's interesting to follow their respective careers post fallout and Dan's sexual harrasment towards Meg.
Both, obviously hurt by Dan's behavior, but open with moving forward. Dan didn't get cancelled for his behavior because he owned up to it, he tried to make amends. Something that isn't often seen in the industry but also not something to give too much credit for as being a decent human being should be the f*ng norm.
But regardless: Harmon knows what he's talking about and at least deserves the benefit of the doubt to make the right choices as a creative and as a boss that has been the perpetrator himself that was forced to change.

Hard to manneuver this scenario, the show is tainted and as long as Roiland isn't willing to confront his own demons there's no real reason to push him towards it.

I'll watch the new season, I enjoyed the show (despite it's awfull fanbase) as well as Community, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Mythic Quest. Just sad that these shows all converege at a disturbing point for Meg's career.

What I was trying to say with this tangient: Dan has been a creep himself and seemingly learned from his behavior to a point where he may have turned into a better man. For now I trust his judgemenet.
ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 9/29/2023, 11:00 AM
@Blergh - I didn't know about any of that. He did seem to take an "Who am I to judge?" approach in his statement.
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