Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Solar Opposites

  • Roiland Dropped from ‘Solar Opposites,’ Loses Overall Deal at 20th Century Animation

    Roiland Dropped from ‘Solar Opposites,’ Loses Overall Deal at 20th Century Animation

    A day after it was announced that Adult Swim has cut ties with Rick & Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, Hulu has decided to follow suit. Roiland, who voiced Rick & Morty on the Adult Swim series, also helped to co-create Solar Opposites for Hulu. Solar Opposites, renewed for a fourth season, will continue, but Roiland will no longer be attached due to his domestic assault charge.

    The news was announced on Wednesday with The Hollywood Reporter confirming that Roiland’s overall deal with 20th Century Animation is also no more. “We have ended our association with Justin Roiland,” Hulu and 20th TV Animation revealed in a statement to the press.

    With 20th Century Animation and Hulu cutting ties with Roiland, he will also no longer be involved in Koala Man. That series recently launched on Hulu and hails from creator Michael Cusack and showrunners Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez. Roiland has also willingly resigned from Squanch Games, the video game developer he helped to co-found.

    While Rick & Morty is set to recast the titular characters for the remaining 40 episodes left from the show’s renewal back in 2018*, Hulu hasn’t officially announced its plans regarding who will voice Korvo in future episodes of Solar Opposites. (The renewal for Rick & Morty at the time was for 70 episodes overall.)

    Source: THR.

  • NYCC: Hulu Renews ‘Solar Opposites’ for Season 5

    NYCC: Hulu Renews ‘Solar Opposites’ for Season 5

    New York Comic Con officially kicked off on Thursday and with it came news that Solar Opposites would be returning for another season. Hulu confirmed the series would return for Season 5 during the show’s panel. The show’s renewal comes after it aired a Halloween special on Hulu and well before the show’s fourth season, which will hit the streamer sometime next year.

    Solar Opposites, which was co-created by Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty) and Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty), focuses on a “family” of four aliens who are forced to adapt to life on Earth. Korvo (Roiland) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) are eager to fix their ship and leave Earth behind, noting the pollution and consumerism, while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) have fully embraced life on Earth, including television and junk food. The third season of the hit Hulu series premiered on July 13th and the Halloween Special debuted on October 3rd.

    The fourth season of Solar Opposites will consist of 12-episodes. As of right now, no release date has been announced outside of 2023.

    Source: Deadline.

  • Hulu Sets Premiere Date for ‘Solar Opposites’ Halloween Special

    Hulu Sets Premiere Date for ‘Solar Opposites’ Halloween Special

    Hulu has announced a Halloween special for Solar Opposites.

    The streaming service will premiere the Halloween special, A Sinister Halloween Scary Opposites Solar Special, on October 3rd. The special promises to prove that “sometimes, alien life can be spooky.”

    Solar Opposites, which was co-created by Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty) and Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty), focuses on a “family” of four aliens who are forced to adapt to life on Earth. Korvo (Roiland) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) are eager to fix their ship and leave Earth behind, noting the pollution and consumerism, while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) have fully embraced life on Earth, including television and junk food. The show’s third season premiered on Hulu back in July.

    This marks the second Halloween special for Roiland, as Hulu is also set to debut a Halloween special for The Paloni Show. That special will be titled The Paloni Show! Halloween Special! and will hit the streaming service on October 17th.

    News of the Solar Opposites Halloween special was first announced during the show’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con over the summer. The series was renewed for a fourth season back in June 2021, however, it’s currently unknown when Season 4 will hit Hulu.

    The first three seasons of Solar Opposites are now streaming on Hulu.

    Source: Deadline.

  • ‘Solar Opposites’ and ‘Koala Man’ Creative Teams Discuss Relationship with Hulu

    ‘Solar Opposites’ and ‘Koala Man’ Creative Teams Discuss Relationship with Hulu

    With Hulu having further developed its base of original adult animation content, the question can permeate of how much of a presence does the streaming service have in overseeing the content it distributes. Luckily for the creative teams behind the likes of Solar Opposites and the upcoming Koala Man, the Disney majority-owned platform appears to have a strong tolerance for what can be included in these shows. Murphy’s Multiverse had the opportunity to sit down with the head creative figures of these two shows during San Diego Comic-Con last week, and they offered some insight regarding their working relationship with Hulu. Justin Roiland, co-creator of Solar Opposites and executive producer on Koala Man, even went on to discuss his fortune when it comes to this dynamic.

    I’m really lucky to have partners at Hulu, and all the folks I’m working with, and even at Adult Swim. Everyone that believes in it and is chill. Obviously, Rick and Morty was the foot in the door to get us to Solar Opposites. And then our relationship with Hulu… we’re all friends with the network executives, it’s really a magical thing that is not always the case. There’s certain places where the executives, there’s a very adversarial line. But they (Hulu) trust us and on Solar, we get to do what we want to do. We get notes here and there, but they will let us address them how we feel best to address.

    Justin Roiland

    This concept was further confirmed by specific members of creative team members on both of the series respectively. Specifically, a theme permeated in the writer’s rooms trying to push the boundaries of what they could get away with, only to learn that Hulu was fully on board with keeping the creative process unfettered. Solar Opposites co-creator Mike McMahan and Koala Man executive producer Dan Hernandez both addressed this topic.

    Sometimes we’re like ‘Can we try to piss Hulu off?’ And then we never do, but the episodes come out like we were trying to, which I really like…We’ve tried to get Hulu to tell us ‘no,’ and they just won’t do it.

    Mike McMahan

    There were a few times where we got to ‘Could we do that?’ And Hulu was like ‘Sure, sounds good.’ And I was like, ‘I can’t believe they let us do that.’ It’s been amazing to be at Hulu where there’s nothing that’s holding us back from telling the funniest, best stories that we can think of.

    Dan Hernandez

    Ultimately, this seems to be a good sign that Hulu will remain a strong home for the high concept and daring projects that creative minds such as Justin Roiland and Michael Cusack can concoct. This is certainly the case as seen with the consistent success of Solar Opposites and the high anticipation that has built for the upcoming Koala Man.

    This interview was done in conjunction with Saturday Morning Cereal, Pixelated Geek, and JVS Media & Productions.

  • ‘Solar Opposites’ Executive Producers Discuss Creative Process for the Series

    ‘Solar Opposites’ Executive Producers Discuss Creative Process for the Series

    Solar Opposites recently released its third season, consisting of 11 episodes, on Hulu, and much praise has been given to the extremely high concept ideas that are presented and the overall strong writing from the adult animated series. During this past weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con events, Murphy’s Multiverse had the opportunity to sit down with series co-creator Mike McMahan and executive producers Josh Bycel and Danielle Uhlrik to talk about the creative and writing process behind Solar Opposites. McMahan opened the interview by discussing the ultimate creative freedom the team has and their ability to formulate absurd pitches into tangible content. 

    Half the time, I’ll pitch an insane thing, Joshua (Bycel) will go, ‘Well we can’t do that,’ and we’ll spend the day thinking how we can do it.

    Mike McMahan

    A good portion of the “insane” ideas that end up being folded into the series come from a deep lexicon of film and television references. Both Danielle Uhlirk and Josh Bycel spent some time talking about these inspirations that permeate in the writer’s room.

    We love TV and movies so much that the more we can break the rules, the better. And then we are just surprising ourselves, because, at the end of it, we are just trying to entertain ourselves in the (writer’s) room.

    Danielle Uhlrik

    So many times, so many of the nods or the homages are only things that we like that no one else is asking for. Like no one was asking for us to do a storyline about Sylvester Stallone’s movie Daylight, but we thought it was funny and Mike (McMahan) and I liked it.

    Josh Bycel

    With that in mind, Mike McMahan brought up the advantages that the animation medium has in being able to reach these unpredictable concepts that the creative team produces.

    When you’re watching an animated show, you know right at the beginning…it isn’t going to be a ‘standard’ show. So how are we going to wield that? Executives always ask, ‘Why is this animated?,’and for us, it’s because you’re never going to predict what happens in the show.

    Mike McMahan

    Josh Bycel also took some time to discuss the joy he and the writing team get to have in getting to branch out into various genres of film and television for this show, even within their distinct background of comedy.

    When we get to do The Wall stuff and now with this new season, SilverCops…for us it’s so fun as we get to cosplay being drama writers. We’re like nerdy comedy writers that no prestigious drama would ever hire, but we get to do our own prestigious drama with tiny little people eating Peeps.

    Josh Bycel

    On the concept of The Wall, Mike McMahan revealed that the Solar Opposites team still has large amounts of story to be told from that arc that will cover a good portion of the show’s future.

    I think for The Wall, we have at least two or three more seasons figured out, but luckily it’s such an open book. Because you can switch the genre and because it’s just little people in a society…it’s like a video game in a way. We can always adjust it and change it, we just have to introduce new villains and new heroes and let time pass. The one thing we push the breaks on is we don’t want to jump ahead, it’s more funny to us to be like ‘Okay, now the Cherie character has a baby, but next season it can’t be a teenager, that almost has to be a toddler and let it be a slow, unexpected serialized thing.’ But then because we get to genre-change all the time, it feels like a different Oscar-movie thriller every year which we never get to write that stuff as comedy writers. It’s like a whole new sandbox, and we never run out of ideas

    Mike McMahan

    If Solar Opposites is able to maintain the high level of creative quality it has exuded thus far for the multiple future seasons of content the writing team has accounted for, Hulu could have a long-term success story on their hands. All three seasons of Solar Opposites are currently available to watch on Hulu and a fourth is currently in development.

    This interview was done in conjunction with Saturday Morning Cereal, Pixelated Geek, and JVS Media & Productions.

  • Justin Roiland On Why He Prefers to Tell Alien-Based Stories

    Justin Roiland On Why He Prefers to Tell Alien-Based Stories

    A common theme found in the world of projects by Justin Roiland, between the likes of Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites, is the primary focus on alien characters and worlds. While some may view it as a simple creative coincidence, there is a deeper reason behind why Roiland comes back to them when developing his shows. While sitting down with Murphy’s Multiverse during San Diego Comic-Con, Roiland discussed this subject in detail.

    There’s no coincidence that a lot of my shows are alien-based. Because when you have an alien cast, it just eliminates a lot of identity politics and a lot of stuff goes out the window. And you can just focus on the characters underneath. And that’s how I live my life. I don’t care what you are, I just want to know who you are as a person and your heart and your brain.

    Justin Roiland

    Being able to distinctly take away the concept of identity politics from stories of character development is a fascinating concept in today’s day and age. The stigmas and biases from society can’t help but not be a major factor in how the world is viewed, and it especially can be pervasive in the analysis of artistic and entertainment content. By taking it away, Roiland has found his way to adeptly tell human stories through the means of setting them as different species within the universe. And with that in mind, Roiland’s point in this interview provides newer context to how his projects can be perceived.

    This interview was done in conjunction with Saturday Morning Cereal, Pixelated Geek, and JVS Media & Productions.