Rick and Morty movie officially confirmed by creator Dan Harmon – with fan-favourite director helming it

A long-rumoured Rick and Morty feature film is moving forward, with series co-creator Dan Harmon confirming a director for the project this week.

The animated series, which started life as a twisted parody of Back to the Future, follows genius grandpa Rick and his long-suffering grandson Morty on wild adventures, which have increasingly dragged other members of their family along for the ride.

The show found pop culture dominance over its first few seasons, although its status was dimmed by a post-season 6 controversy, which saw co-creator and original star Justin Roiland dropped from the show.

Since then, voice actors Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden have inherited the roles of Rick and Morty respectively, joining continuing cast members Sarah Chalke (Scrubs), Chris Parnell (Fallout) and Spencer Grammer (Greek).

The revised ensemble is now poised to take their characters into a feature film, with Harmon telling CinemaBlend that recent murmurs of a franchise expansion were accurate.

“We saw the same leak, and we are, therefore, now able to confirm that there is a movie in the works,” he began.

Harmon named the Rick and Morty movie director as Jacob Hair, who has been a core member of the show since season 4, responsible for The Vat of Acid Episode, plus season 5 and 6 openers Mort Dinner Rick Andre and Solaricks.

“We didn’t shop around,” continued Harmon. “He is an absolute… to say rock star, honestly, feels like trivialising it because that implies some kind of flash in the pan… I mean, Jacob has it! [When he] came onto our team, it was like adding a pillar to it.”

What remains unclear is whether the Rick and Morty movie will be released in cinemas, or head straight to streaming on HBO Max (which recently launched in the UK after a long wait).

Animated TV shows have had a mixed track record with theatrical efforts, with The Simpsons Movie pulling in more than half a billion dollars in 2007, while Bob’s Burgers flopped with its own attempt in 2022.

For his part, Harmon told The Hollywood Reporter how he’d approach a Rick and Morty feature back in 2023.

“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,” he shared.

“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.”

Harmon may not be directing, but is likely to be involved as an executive producer, so this vision could well be relevant to the finished product. To tide us over in the meantime, Rick and Morty season 9 is headed to HBO Max next month.

Rick and Morty is available to stream on HBO Max. Subscribe from £5.99 a month.

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