On Wednesday, Adult Swim premiered President Curtis, a new spin-off of the hit comedy franchise, at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, expanding a property that many fans predicted would struggle to survive after the departure of co-creator Justin Roiland.
Keith David reprises his role as the titular POTUS, a Rick and Morty series regular since season two’s “Get Schwifty” episode. The show’s voice cast includes Stephanie Beatriz and Jim Rash. The new series follows the commander-in-chief and his staff as they navigate interdimensional diplomacy, paranormal investigations and other unexplained crises.
The launch comes more than three years after Adult Swim severed ties with Roiland following felony domestic abuse charges that were later dismissed. At the time, many fans argued the series could not continue without the co-creator, who voiced both Rick and Morty. The network instead recast the roles, with Ian Cardoni taking over as Rick and Harry Belden as Morty, while co-creator Dan Harmon remained as sole showrunner.
“It was a different thing than when Michael [Cusack] and Zach [Hadel] said we don’t want to do more Smiling Friends,” Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen said in Annecy. “Even though we greenlit two more seasons, we knew we couldn’t continue without them. With Rick and Morty, we had a bunch of people working on it. We knew the show could continue and maybe even keep growing creatively.”
Far from scaling back, Adult Swim has expanded the franchise in the years since. The company has released projects including Rick and Morty: The Anime and digital spin-off Vindicators 2: Last Stand Between Earth and Doom. Warner Bros. is also developing a feature film, with series director Jacob Hair in talks to helm, while the flagship series has already been renewed through season 12.
Ouweleen argued that Rick and Morty has evolved creatively in the post-Roiland era, becoming less cynical and more emotionally ambitious.
“The way they approach the human condition—it just keeps getting better and better,” he said. “I’ll sit at my desk and cry. There’s also fart jokes.”
Addressing viewers resistant to change, Ouweleen compared the show’s evolution to that of a favorite band.
“An interesting thing in entertainment, or with a brand like Adult Swim, is that you have to keep moving and evolving,” he said. “Sometimes people love a version of a thing, and if it evolves, they have a tough time with it. But that’s your job—to surprise them, to keep it interesting.”
President Curtis is also part of a broader effort to diversify Adult Swim’s programming slate. Alongside established franchises, the network has expanded into new genres and formats with projects including the dramedy Common Side Effects, young adult series Super Mutant Magic Academy and experimental quarter-hour comedies such as Haha, You Clowns.
“We’re trying to broaden that out,” Ouweleen said. “We’ve got things in development that’s fantasy comedy, fantasy, some kind of gothic stuff, horror—just a lot of different flavors coming in.”
The expansion comes as Adult Swim continues to grow internationally. The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned brand is now available on HBO Max across most major global markets, including the U.K., Germany and France.
“We are pretty much fully global now,” Ouweleen said.
Despite that reach, Adult Swim has produced relatively few international originals, including Rick and Morty: The Anime, Australian series YOLO and Women Wearing Shoulder Pads, the Ecuador-set animated telenovela produced in Mexico. Notably absent from the slate is a European original.
Ouweleen said part of the challenge lies in the differences between the European financing model and Adult Swim’s creator-driven development process.
“[European creators] are used to working with government funding, doing co-productions across many countries, and producing a lot of material, if not a full season of a thing, and then looking for distributors,” he said. “That’s opposite of how Adult Swim is. In Europe, creators often come to us with a fully baked idea, and then it’s too late,” he said. “We want to work with you before the cement is dry.”
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