Adult Swim Festival 2022 Recap: Aqua Teen , Rick and Morty, And More

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Adult Swim parent company WB Discovery has had a trying week. On Thursday’s earnings presentation, new head David Zaslav caused ruffles when he announced that animation will be potentially part of the cuts coming down the pike for HBO MAX which could affect both kids and adult animation. The latter is probably only slightly safer because HBO MAX hasn’t had a lot of direct-to-streaming offerings anyway, but with South Park being one of the most popular, building around that still seems to be a goal in both linear AND streaming. The odd-man out could be DC animation. While the home release business appears to be safe, questions are surrounding the future of direct-to-streaming franchises like Harley Quinn and Young Justice. 

In the meantime, I think Adult Swim gets a pass because all of their content is either doing linear first or a home release first, both methods that Zaslav would prefer as it gets franchises to make money sooner rather than hope to get clicks on a streamer. With the budget drawbacks, Adult Swim Festival, while impressive, wasn’t the news-filled fest we thought it was going to be after a lackluster San Diego Comic-Con 2022. Is New York Comic-Con the beacon now? We don’t know, but here’s important information we did find out.

1)The new Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie has a release date, more on that later. But film adaptations of Metalocalypse and Venture Bros., seem to be a lock for at least 2023 the earliest. Same goes for new franchise Royal Crackers, which also appears to be hitting Adult Swim next year.

2) The Rick and Morty panel showcased a new episode entitled “Rick: A Mort Well Lived”  and issued this clip at the end.  Roiland has been hitting the press circuits in support of the new season of Solar Opposites on Hulu but also teasing a much stronger season of Rick and Morty in season six whence compared to season five, promising more serialized elements. The show kicks off September 4th only on Adult Swim, a teaser website has been launched.

3) In hopes of new episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the panel was in full force with the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Plantasm feature-length dropping November 8th via Blu-Ray first before bowing for a 2023 release. Here’s the clip that was shown. This panel also comes ahead of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Baffler Meal Complete Collection (the producers note that former Adult Swim heads weren’t a fan of the idea, but the new heads are all for it) that will feature 138 episodes, 30 hours of bonus content, and the OG Aqua Teen movie that was released for theaters. This is slated to release on September 20th. Here’s a first-look at the cover art for the new movie coming in November.

4) Smiling Friends panel was really more of the same from SDCC 2022. Here’s the review for the final episode of the show’s first season that premiered last night on Adult Swim.

About John Schwarz

John is the Chief Editor and Founder of Bubbleblabber.com. While at first a part-time project, Bubbleblabber quickly grew into a full-fledged operation and officially became a company in 2014. When John isn't running a business full-time, he likes to go to concerts with your mother.