The Hollywood Reporter pens an article on Justin Roiland’s arrest and empire imploding, noting signs were there for years

[Jman]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/justin-roiland-animation-empire-implosion-rick-and-morty-1235319366/
 

The rise and fall of the only thing keeping Adult Swim buoyant after Family Guy left. 
 

Apparently him and Dan Harmon haven’t spoken for years.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Jman

[Sketch]

Sounds more like Roiland distanced himself from the writers room than his actions forced him out when all things considered his actions should have forced him out. According to this he records from home and takes no vocal direction and if he makes personal appearances to promote projects then he’s not doing it sober. CN investigated his behavior in 2020 but seemingly the executives didn’t do anything until the R&M staff requested the company make a statement.

[Daos]

12 hours ago, Sketch said:

Sounds more like Roiland distanced himself from the writers room than his actions forced him out when all things considered his actions should have forced him out. According to this he records from home and takes no vocal direction and if he makes personal appearances to promote projects then he’s not doing it sober. CN investigated his behavior in 2020 but seemingly the executives didn’t do anything until the R&M staff requested the company make a statement.

Yeah I'm pretty surprised they put up with any of that shit. The remote control car with the microphone? Trying to talk your coworker into a 3 way? Just flat out not showing up for work? 

Also a fun takeaway, he was managed by famous Svengali enabler Sam Lutfi. If you're a crazy celeb that needs drugs he's the guy to call.

Replacing him on the show is going to be easier than they thought though.

 

[Sketch]

I hope they give it to the TIkTok guy. He nails the voices and can act. But I have a feeling they won't want to go that direction and instead will hire one or two established voice actors.

I can only think of The Boondocks situation where Witherspoon's son was up for the role to takeover as Grandad but despite JD Witherspoon being a career voice actor and matching his father well, they were supposedly going to cast some other guy who wouldn't have been as good of a match. But eventually Sony just cancelled it.

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, Daos said:

Yeah I'm pretty surprised they put up with any of that shit. The remote control car with the microphone? Trying to talk your coworker into a 3 way? Just flat out not showing up for work? 

I really don’t think AS wanted to fire him. I can’t think of any show that has survived a main character recasting for reasons besides death of the original VA. And AS has nothing else. So these antics were being ignored for the sake of keeping the cash cow mooing. Can’t ignore charges though, but by the sound of it, even then they had to be pressured into action. 
 

17 minutes ago, Sketch said:

I hope they give it to the TIkTok guy. He nails the voices and can act. But I have a feeling they won't want to go that direction and instead will hire one or two established voice actors.

 

This is the ideal show where they can just take the piss out of the change. Have Morty screw something up that gives them new voices and Rick shrugs it off as something that may be permanent but he doesn’t know nor care. 
 

The tik tok guy is great at imitating Roiland, but does bringing in the closest match force them to admit the only thing keeping the show watchable was Roiland’s (apparently real) drunken, ad libbed stammering? I think it does. 

[Jman]

We know if this was a lesser show they would have canceled it without a second thought, because they did cancel a lesser show without a second thought when one of its leads was accused of a crime literally a few months prior.  Hence the cancelation of Tuca and Bertie.

But with Family Guy gone, none of their other originals really doing anything, Futurama and King of the Hill both set for Hulu revivals, Toonami utterly barren thanks to Crunchyroll cutting off the anime spigot, and those finale movies one Zaslav tax cut away from being canceled, they literally have nothing left that will keep the lights on.  If they cancel Rick and Morty, start the countdown timer because things are going to go sour with the block very quickly.

[Daos]

6 hours ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

I really don’t think AS wanted to fire him. I can’t think of any show that has survived a main character recasting for reasons besides death of the original VA. And AS has nothing else. So these antics were being ignored for the sake of keeping the cash cow mooing. Can’t ignore charges though, but by the sound of it, even then they had to be pressured into action. 
 

This is the ideal show where they can just take the piss out of the change. Have Morty screw something up that gives them new voices and Rick shrugs it off as something that may be permanent but he doesn’t know nor care. 
 

The tik tok guy is great at imitating Roiland, but does bringing in the closest match force them to admit the only thing keeping the show watchable was Roiland’s (apparently real) drunken, ad libbed stammering? I think it does. 

Yeah but at that point you just have to tell them, "Look man, you've got a lot of behavioral problems and you clearly don't want to be here, let us buy you out and recast the role" Then he could have stayed home and finished having his drunken downward spiral with whatever mental issues he has.

[MasqueradeOverture]

https://twitter.com/illustrevor/status/1622978818561507328

I can never get tweets to embed on this site

Edited February 8, 2023 by MasqueradeOverture

[atomicinumatt]

6 hours ago, Jman said:

We know if this was a lesser show they would have canceled it without a second thought, because they did cancel a lesser show without a second thought when one of its leads was accused of a crime literally a few months prior.  Hence the cancelation of Tuca and Bertie.

But with Family Guy gone, none of their other originals really doing anything, Futurama and King of the Hill both set for Hulu revivals, Toonami utterly barren thanks to Crunchyroll cutting off the anime spigot, and those finale movies one Zaslav tax cut away from being canceled, they literally have nothing left that will keep the lights on.  If they cancel Rick and Morty, start the countdown timer because things are going to go sour with the block very quickly.

While the cancellation of R&M would start the countdown, I do not see it being the end. 

If they cancel and are able to pivot that funding to other shows, or even new material, they may be able to transition and diversify. I could see the end of R&M as an opportunity to create new cash cows. But this is a more risky endeavor. 

I think they will recast and do Season 7, and then seeing the fans response, may keep going after 7, or just cancel if numbers are bad. 

But who knows. I want them to just end it. We have had 10 years of R&M monopoly and after the first season or two the show got stale. Take that capital and use it on new or existing IPs!

But we all know [as] is too neutered and pussy to do it!

[Toonamiguy321]

24 minutes ago, atomicinumatt said:

If they cancel and are able to pivot that funding to other shows, or even new material, they may be able to transition and diversify. I could see the end of R&M as an opportunity to create new cash cows. But this is a more risky endeavor. 

It’s not like R&M has completely prevented the creation of other new content. The problem is all the other new content does terrible. Even content they make that people like barely holds a candle to R&M performance wise. 
 

AS always wanted a Simpsons style show. Something with insanely high viewership that they can just crank season after season out of. R&M was as close as they got to that goal, losing it will be hard to recover from. 

[atomicinumatt]

16 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

It’s not like R&M has completely prevented the creation of other new content. The problem is all the other new content does terrible. Even content they make that people like barely holds a candle to R&M performance wise. 
 

AS always wanted a Simpsons style show. Something with insanely high viewership that they can just crank season after season out of. R&M was as close as they got to that goal, losing it will be hard to recover from. 

My point is that maybe it is time to find that new Simpsons show since R&M has gone to shit. Viewership has been dwindling since like season two or three. 

Imagine Simpsons if they axed Dan Castellaneta..

My point is also that in any business or markets it is wise to diversify and cut losses. 

Edited February 8, 2023 by atomicinumatt

[Jman]

13 minutes ago, atomicinumatt said:

Imagine Simpsons if they axed Dan Castellaneta..

 

[atomicinumatt]

12 minutes ago, Jman said:

 

Lmao I love Simpsons 

While a lot of viewers probably wouldn't be able to tell, it is definitely noticeable though. 

In terms of R&M, it just seems like a sinking ship, not just with the Roiland scandal. I think with continued seasons viewership will continue to drop. But who knows, maybe it will see a revival in numbers. 

[Toonamiguy321]

1 hour ago, atomicinumatt said:

My point is that maybe it is time to find that new Simpsons show since R&M has gone to shit. Viewership has been dwindling since like season two or three. 

 

I’m looking at their recent slate of content and I don’t think they are going to find what they are looking for. Their big pivot to try to lure in a female audience has done nothing but churn out turd after turd. I don’t know if you watched their shorts event last week, but IMO it was 4 consecutive duds. And currently, we are still in a scenario where we know more Toonami original projects incoming than actual AS projects. If AS isn’t making anything then they aren’t going to discover anything. 
 

I do agree R&M has been sinking for some time now. It’s been showing the telltale signs of creative bankruptcy and seasonal rot. They have never been able to balance the demands of the lore audience and the season 1 adventures audience. That said, the half submerged Titanic that is R&M is still a safer and more successful option that any of the other dinghys AS has out in the cable waters. 
 

What is most worrisome is it could be easily argued that R&M success is whats paying the bills for the other small time shows to get made. Yes, no longer funding it would free up some capital, but the investors are gonna be pretty scared of risk when there is no clear breadwinner to restock the coffers in the event of a dud.

[atomicinumatt]

11 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

I’m looking at their recent slate of content and I don’t think they are going to find what they are looking for. Their big pivot to try to lure in a female audience has done nothing but churn out turd after turd. I don’t know if you watched their shorts event last week, but IMO it was 4 consecutive duds. And currently, we are still in a scenario where we know more Toonami original projects incoming than actual AS projects. If AS isn’t making anything then they aren’t going to discover anything. 

Yea, most of the shorts I have seen recently have been meh. In terms of the newer shows, I like YOLO and Smiling Friends. I am hopeful that the time Toonami has spent on Uzumaki produces something that is good, cause I love the manga, but that does not equate to good ratings. 

I feel they should take the opportunity to scale back on R&M and move funding to making or discovering something new and good. I love the old school underground ways of [as] throwing the minimum at a project and letting it gain a cult following, because I do not really care about ratings or popularity, but if they want to find a new big, mainstream thing for the block then they will have to take risks and spend money. 

I do not see them doing that, at least not anytime soon. I would assume they will roll out a new season of R&M and then possibly reconvene on the issue if the next season is a flop.

Who knows. 

17 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

I do agree R&M has been sinking for some time now. It’s been showing the telltale signs of creative bankruptcy and seasonal rot. They have never been able to balance the demands of the lore audience and the season 1 adventures audience. That said, the half submerged Titanic that is R&M is still a safer and more successful option that any of the other dinghys AS has out in the cable waters. 

Exactly. 

I fell in love with Season one and by the middle to end of Season three I was already finding it stale. 

Maybe the show can have a turn around now that Roiland is gone, but I see it more likely to sink further. I just do not see as many fans returning after the scandal in general, let alone the lead VA being replaced. Dedicated fans will return, but I see a further drop off in viewership and merchandising in general. 

21 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

What is most worrisome is it could be easily argued that R&M success is whats paying the bills for the other small time shows to get made. Yes, no longer funding it would free up some capital, but the investors are gonna be pretty scared of risk when there is no clear breadwinner to restock the coffers in the event of a dud.

This is certainly a worry, though I do not think it is as serious. At least not in the short-term.

I would assume that they have money to keep the lights on from their overlords (maybe not haha) and the success of shows like R&M is more along the lines of profits, considering how successful it has been. 

But if the next season is a flop, maybe the overlords do not see profits in [as]'s general future and decide to ax us all together! But that probably would not materialize for a year or two, if at all! 

 

I just want shows like Venture Bros back :O

[Toonamiguy321]

2 hours ago, atomicinumatt said:

I like YOLO and Smiling Friends. I am hopeful that the time Toonami has spent on Uzumaki produces something that is good, cause I love the manga, but that does not equate to good ratings

I liked Yolo at first, but this second season has opened my eyes that it’s pretty much just silly Aussie voices on top of nonsense. Normally, that’s fine by me but AS has been really leaning hard on Cusack in recent years. That said, it does take me back to better times when AS shows weren’t trying to be more than a few late night laughs. 
 

At this point I have zero expectations for Uzumaki. It’s got too many delays on it to live up to that expectation with just 4 episodes. And even if its 11/10 amazing, it’s just 4 episodes. It will air, we will discuss it for a week, and it will be forgotten. Just as HCC was. 
 

2 hours ago, atomicinumatt said:

I would assume that they have money to keep the lights on from their overlords (maybe not haha) and the success of shows like R&M is more along the lines of profits, considering how successful it has been. 

Personally I don’t worry about AS as a whole going broke and shutting down. But I do worry about them being forced to cut some costs to make ends meet. When that discussion comes up, Toonami is always #1 on the list. The block is already suffering from major cutbacks, i don’t think it can weather too many more. I don’t see them outright cancelling it, but it being alive on just a diet of One Piece, Naruto and the occasional original for 2 hours a week is worse than death. 

[atomicinumatt]

31 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

I liked Yolo at first, but this second season has opened my eyes that it’s pretty much just silly Aussie voices on top of nonsense. Normally, that’s fine by me but AS has been really leaning hard on Cusack in recent years. That said, it does take me back to better times when AS shows weren’t trying to be more than a few late night laughs. 
 

At this point I have zero expectations for Uzumaki. It’s got too many delays on it to live up to that expectation with just 4 episodes. And even if its 11/10 amazing, it’s just 4 episodes. It will air, we will discuss it for a week, and it will be forgotten. Just as HCC was. 

I have sadly noticed Season two is not as good as the first. 

I really liked the first season but the first couple episodes of Season two were meh and did not have me laughing as much. I did find the most recent episode to be a bit better though. 

It makes you wonder how much they can get out of Cusack. 

With regards to Uzumaki, while I hope that it is good, I do not expect much though. As you pointed out we will only get 4 episodes, and though the manga is short, I do not know if they will be able to adapt it in 4 episodes. Let alone be able to capture the vibes of the manga. 

35 minutes ago, Toonamiguy321 said:

Personally I don’t worry about AS as a whole going broke and shutting down. But I do worry about them being forced to cut some costs to make ends meet. When that discussion comes up, Toonami is always #1 on the list. The block is already suffering from major cutbacks, i don’t think it can weather too many more. I don’t see them outright cancelling it, but it being alive on just a diet of One Piece, Naruto and the occasional original for 2 hours a week is worse than death. 

It is a bit worrisome though, if R&M does continue to decline, it makes you wonder if Toonami will see more cut backs trickle down to them. Definitely something to keep an eye on. I am already saddened that we are cut down to 3 hours  

Will be interesting to see what new stuff may be announced in the coming months. 

[Daos]

6 hours ago, atomicinumatt said:

My point is that maybe it is time to find that new Simpsons show since R&M has gone to shit. Viewership has been dwindling since like season two or three. 

Imagine Simpsons if they axed Dan Castellaneta..

My point is also that in any business or markets it is wise to diversify and cut losses. 

Viewership means squat at this point. It's a globally recognized brand that sells merch. It's why so many shows like Sym-bionic Titan get canceled, they don't sell merch.

“Rick and Morty” now boasts more than 150 global licensees — spanning fashion, accessories, home, toys and games — that generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Airing in more than 110 countries and dubbed in 26 languages, the show was basic cable’s No. 1 comedy in 2019 and has won two Emmys for animated program, in 2018 and 2020.

“That is surreal to see all the merch,” says co-creator Justin Roiland. “That was my lifelong dream. I was like, if I can create a franchise that gets toys made, I could hang my hat up and walk off into the sunset, having accomplished my ultimate fantasy. And it happened.”

[atomicinumatt]

36 minutes ago, Daos said:

Viewership means squat at this point. It's a globally recognized brand that sells merch. It's why so many shows like Sym-bionic Titan get canceled, they don't sell merch.

“Rick and Morty” now boasts more than 150 global licensees — spanning fashion, accessories, home, toys and games — that generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Airing in more than 110 countries and dubbed in 26 languages, the show was basic cable’s No. 1 comedy in 2019 and has won two Emmys for animated program, in 2018 and 2020.

“That is surreal to see all the merch,” says co-creator Justin Roiland. “That was my lifelong dream. I was like, if I can create a franchise that gets toys made, I could hang my hat up and walk off into the sunset, having accomplished my ultimate fantasy. And it happened.”

 

5 hours ago, atomicinumatt said:

Maybe the show can have a turn around now that Roiland is gone, but I see it more likely to sink further. I just do not see as many fans returning after the scandal in general, let alone the lead VA being replaced. Dedicated fans will return, but I see a further drop off in viewership and merchandising in general. 

So we are thinking that merchandising is just going to keep pumping out or even accelerate? IDK I feel like a lot of casual and dedicated fans have been turned off. They aint gonna sell more merch.

And why do you think that people buy merch? Because they view and like the show. 

I guess time will tell..

Maybe Justin finally saw his shows toys everywhere and that is why he decided to be an asshat and implode his show. 

[Jman]

Merchandise is only as relevant as the show, even knockoff merch, like all those Rick and Morty cannabis accessories or those shirts with Kid Goku in bling.  It's not self-sustaining.  If the show's ratings go to shit and the merchandise is found in bargain bins because people think the show is ruined with all the bad press and new voices, do you really see it lasting that long?  

No merchandise machine is self-sustaining.  At best, if the popularity is compromised, you can return to this in a decade and sell it as sort of a vintage thing.  (Member Rick and Morty?  Damn if that won't make you feel old).  It all depends on if people want to give the show a chance with the new voices.

[atomicinumatt]

2 minutes ago, Jman said:

It all depends on if people want to give the show a chance with the new voices.

Precisely this.

R&M has the chance to turn things around and salvage the show, but it will come down to the risks they are willing to take and what the fan base is willing to watch. But I do think it is going to be an uphill battle. 

I would love to be wrong though! 

[Daos]

9 minutes ago, Jman said:

Merchandise is only as relevant as the show, even knockoff merch, like all those Rick and Morty cannabis accessories or those shirts with Kid Goku in bling.  It's not self-sustaining.  If the show's ratings go to shit and the merchandise is found in bargain bins because people think the show is ruined with all the bad press and new voices, do you really see it lasting that long?  

No merchandise machine is self-sustaining.  At best, if the popularity is compromised, you can return to this in a decade and sell it as sort of a vintage thing.  (Member Rick and Morty?  Damn if that won't make you feel old).  It all depends on if people want to give the show a chance with the new voices.

  I would argue the exact opposite. Becoming a globally recognized brand makes the merchandise self sustaining. The Simpsons haven't been culturally relevant in 20 years.

"Ratings: “The Simpsons” Drops Below 1 Million Viewers for the First Time in 33 Seasons"

So why do they continue to keep this corpse of a once great show animated? The merch.

In 2008, consumers worldwide spent about $750 million in “Simpsons” related products, with half of all sales coming from the United States, Fox told USA Today. Eleven years later, that number has dropped by more than half. Worldwide merchandise sales for “The Simpsons” was expected to be $245 million in 2018, according to Forbes contributor Jonathan Berr, citing the trade publication Licensing Letter.

2018 and they were still selling 245 mil in merch. It's probably lower now, but that's passive income that you just don't get from anything but the biggest of hits. But....you have to keep the show going or that number will drop way off.

For all we know the Rick and Morty merchandise empire hasn't even peaked yet.

[Jman]

Counterpoint - Matt Groening isn't looking at 7 years in prison.

[atomicinumatt]

23 minutes ago, Daos said:

In 2008, consumers worldwide spent about $750 million in “Simpsons” related products

 

23 minutes ago, Daos said:

2018 and they were still selling 245 mil in merch

You see the trend there? This is exactly what I mean. 

Viewership and merchandising will continue to decline, similar to how The Simpsons did. But they are not facing a big scandal, let alone the firing of their lead VA. 

Things could turn around but it is more likely that this will only further hurt viewership and merchandising. Not saying there will be no one watching or buying R&M shit, but the scandal/axing will only hurt the show more IMO. Would this mean the just can the show? Who knows, but we wont know until they make another season. 

They are clearly going to pump out new seasons with new VA's to try and salvage and milk it. Interesting to see what becomes of it. 

[Daos]

3 hours ago, atomicinumatt said:

 

You see the trend there? This is exactly what I mean. 

Viewership and merchandising will continue to decline, similar to how The Simpsons did. But they are not facing a big scandal, let alone the firing of their lead VA. 

Things could turn around but it is more likely that this will only further hurt viewership and merchandising. Not saying there will be no one watching or buying R&M shit, but the scandal/axing will only hurt the show more IMO. Would this mean the just can the show? Who knows, but we wont know until they make another season. 

They are clearly going to pump out new seasons with new VA's to try and salvage and milk it. Interesting to see what becomes of it. 

The trend?? The trend??? The fact that it was still selling 750 mil a year in 2008 is MIND BLOWING. The show debuted in 1989! 2008 was almost 20 years in, and the general consensus is that the show began a massive downward slide around season 10. So if you think a show well past its prime can't rake in the big bucks, you are mistaken. A 30 year run where you're still making a quarter bil a year despite the fact that no one watches or talks about your show is like... best case scenario any of these guys could ever hope for.

They're gonna pump out another 70 eps of Rick and Morty, continue keeping it on peoples minds, and keep selling that sweet sweet merch.

4 hours ago, Jman said:

Counterpoint - Matt Groening isn't looking at 7 years in prison.

Yeah but Roiland gave them an easy out. He has no creative input, and the writers haven't seen him in years. Some have never even met him. And there's several people that can do spot on impressions. It's even possible all the extra publicity will increase viewership for the first episode of next season.

[Jman]

You neglected one major factor.  That in 2008, The Simpsons Movie hit theaters after decades of rumors and rejected scripts being turned into regular episodes.  Rick and Morty will never get a movie now.

[Blatch]

On 2/8/2023 at 6:46 AM, Jman said:

But with Family Guy gone, none of their other originals really doing anything, Futurama and King of the Hill both set for Hulu revivals, Toonami utterly barren thanks to Crunchyroll cutting off the anime spigot, and those finale movies one Zaslav tax cut away from being canceled, they literally have nothing left that will keep the lights on.  If they cancel Rick and Morty, start the countdown timer because things are going to go sour with the block very quickly.

Yeah, I think we get it. And also, finale movies? Are you just talking about The Venture Bros.? Who knows about that movie, but I don't know of any others [as] has in development. Maybe Metalocalypse? And if anything, I would expect that [as] would put more effort into these movies, because Aqua Teen's was followed by a renewal of the show proper.

Personally, I think that if [as] goes the route of celebrity VAs, I hope they go all out and do an entire season of different people vociing Rick and Morty. Have Michael Cusack voice them in one episode, Tracey Morgan in another, get the Impractical Jokers to do something, etc. Then they could either gauge the interest for each casting, or just use it as cover while they workshop other people for the permanent roles.

[atomicinumatt]

9 hours ago, Daos said:

The trend?? The trend??? The fact that it was still selling 750 mil a year in 2008 is MIND BLOWING. The show debuted in 1989! 2008 was almost 20 years in, and the general consensus is that the show began a massive downward slide around season 10. So if you think a show well past its prime can't rake in the big bucks, you are mistaken. A 30 year run where you're still making a quarter bil a year despite the fact that no one watches or talks about your show is like... best case scenario any of these guys could ever hope for.

Mkay, lets look at some actual data since you seem to be missing my point, Ya dingus! 

I am going to use data on viewership because it is representative of the general sentiments, which will also reflect in things like merchandising sales. 

This data is right from Wiki. You might notice that it is split into two graphs, and that it might imply that there was jump in viewership around year 2000. But that is not a reflection of more actual viewers, but only a reflection of a change in the way they gathered the stats. Right from the Wiki: "The difference between the rank from season 11 to 12 is not a reflection of a huge audience gain, but rather that the show did better in terms of actual viewers in comparison with other shows."

You see, there is no jump, or new peak in viewership around season 12, but a change in their methods. They went from a household metric to an individual viewer one. 

So in the above data we are seeing a general decline after the first season, throughout the series first 22 seasons..

Lets take a look at R&M data now (From Wiki as well):

So, this is viewers per episode of R&M. Notice that this show peaks at season three, as opposed to season one, with an average viewership of about ~2.5m for season three. 

So R&M does not start to decline until around the third season. 

But it peaks around 2.5m, not over 10m like Simpsons did..

Shows in general follow this trend of decline and tend not to make subsequently large spikes or dumps unless there are some serious developments, news, scandals, etc. Simpsons spiked around the beginning of the show, and R&M spiked around season three. But under normal conditions, they will both continue to slowly decline until something big changes or they eventually get cancelled. 

 

Conclusions:

So what does this all mean? 

Taking a look at the data, it seems that R&M peaked around season three and has started its decline since. 

Under normal conditions, this would most likely continue in a general fashion as did the Simpsons. But R&M is different from the Simpsons, as others have pointed out in this very post. 

R&M has an ongoing scandal that is more than likely only going further hurt the show. Viewership and merchandising is going to take a dump unless the show is able to handle the transition carefully. And even less likely is the show pumping after an event like this.

If it gets another 10 season maybe, maybe it can gain a new fan base, but I see it less likely that it will last more than another season or two. 

But who really knows? 

I understand what you are saying though. I do not think that they are just going to drop the show tomorrow, they obviously want to salvage it with a new season. There is still currently money to be made. But in the coming couple of years if numbers and merchandising continue to drop and money continues to dry up, especially if the new season with new VA's has a drastic drop, you can bet they will consider its cancellation. 

9 hours ago, Daos said:

They're gonna pump out another 70 eps of Rick and Morty, continue keeping it on peoples minds, and keep selling that sweet sweet merch.

Yeah but Roiland gave them an easy out. He has no creative input, and the writers haven't seen him in years. Some have never even met him. And there's several people that can do spot on impressions. It's even possible all the extra publicity will increase viewership for the first episode of next season.

While this is a possibility, I see it being an uphill battle to get the show to last another 70 episodes given the current events. We will see when the next season is out I guess.  

Edited February 9, 2023 by atomicinumatt

[Jman]

2 hours ago, Blatch said:

Yeah, I think we get it. And also, finale movies? Are you just talking about The Venture Bros.? Who knows about that movie, but I don't know of any others [as] has in development. Maybe Metalocalypse? And if anything, I would expect that [as] would put more effort into these movies, because Aqua Teen's was followed by a renewal of the show proper.

Personally, I think that if [as] goes the route of celebrity VAs, I hope they go all out and do an entire season of different people vociing Rick and Morty. Have Michael Cusack voice them in one episode, Tracey Morgan in another, get the Impractical Jokers to do something, etc. Then they could either gauge the interest for each casting, or just use it as cover while they workshop other people for the permanent roles.

The announcement for movies of canceled shows included Plantasm, a Venture Brothers movie that’s a direct sequel to S7, and a Metalocalypse movie that’s supposed to finally wrap up the Doomstar story.

https://movieweb.com/adult-swim-aqua-teen-hunger-force-metalocalypse-venture-bros-movies/

Aqua Teen was first out the door, but I presume because it was cheap as hell (and Plantasm has numerous jokes about it being cheap).

And I’ve been admittedly negative about the block, maybe undeserved because Plantasm was vintage Aqua Teen (maybe with some annoying gross out humor but still hilarious more often than not) but it feels like the sun is setting on the block.  It’s a bit reminiscent of the last days of Adult Swim Action before Toonami reset everything (and by DeMarco’s admission, if Toonami hadn’t come along, Williams Street was ready to excise anime from the block completely).  We’re all waiting on that new spark.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Jman

[Daos]

My point was that looking at a downward trend for a 30 year old show is like telling a 120 year old man "your vitals aren't quite as good as they used to be."

Just the fact that he's still alive is beyond any and all expectations. 

The best explanation of IP/ Celebrity fame I've seen is that it's like getting a large boulder up a mountain. All the effort goes into getting it to the peak. Then you can push it off and it will sustain itself on it's own energy for quite some time before eventually petering out. It's why the Simpsons can still rake in a quarter bil a year when it hasn't been good in two decades. 

It's why Britney and Madonna are still famous despite not having a hit song in decades.

[atomicinumatt]

2 minutes ago, Daos said:

My point was that looking at a downward trend for a 30 year old show is like telling a 120 year old man "your vitals aren't quite as good as they used to be."

Just the fact that he's still alive is beyond any and all expectations. 

The best explanation of IP/ Celebrity fame I've seen is that it's like getting a large boulder up a mountain. All the effort goes into getting it to the peak. Then you can push it off and it will sustain itself on it's own energy for quite some time before eventually petering out. It's why the Simpsons can still rake in a quarter bil a year when it hasn't been good in two decades. 

It's why Britney and Madonna are still famous despite not having a hit song in decades.

I can agree with this in regards to the Simpsons. 

Though I do not think that R&M is on that same level. 

I sure hope the show is able to revive. As I said, I was a big fan of the first couple seasons. 

[Daos]

I think it already got there years ago.

 

[Jman]

12 minutes ago, Daos said:

I think it already got there years ago.

 

That trainwreck did permanent damage to the franchise.  
 

I remember hearing about the riots and going “this is mass produced sauce for nuggies.  You can’t be bothered to go to an actual Chinese restaurant for duck sauce?”

Edited February 9, 2023 by Jman

[atomicinumatt]

47 minutes ago, Daos said:

I think it already got there years ago.

Going by the numbers, at its peak R&M was ~1/5 of what the Simpsons were at their peak. So I do no think so.

[Daos]

6 minutes ago, atomicinumatt said:

Going by the numbers, at its peak R&M was ~1/5 of what the Simpsons were at their peak. So I do no think so.

You can't compare modern day ratings with pre internet era ratings. They're not remotely the same.