‘Rick and Morty’ Boss Explains How James Gunn and Zack Snyder Agreed to Parody Themselves and Their Rival ‘Superman’ Versions
This week’s episode of Rick and Morty featured some surprising guest stars—DC Studios CEO James Gunn and filmmaker Zack Snyder. Both lent their voices to play exaggerated versions of themselves, showing a fun, lighthearted side.
Scott Marder, the executive producer of Rick and Morty, said they were great sports about it. “Both of those guys sort of implied that this is the show they watch when they have downtime. So they were thrilled to get to be a part of the world, and there was no pushback or bristling. If anything, they laughed at anything we threw at them,” he said. Marder even mentioned that there were probably more jokes they could have made, but Gunn and Snyder just laughed it all off.
In the episode called “Ricker Than Fiction,” which is Season 8, Episode 7, James Gunn plays a villain. The story starts with Rick and Morty unhappy about how their favorite movie franchise, called Maximum Velocitree, is being handled.
They go to the Warner Bros. lot to talk to Gunn, who is the director and producer of that fictional movie series. When Gunn’s answers don’t satisfy them, Rick uses a device called the “Movie-lizer” to rewrite the franchise on their own.
There’s a funny moment in the Warner Bros. cafeteria where Gunn meets up with a muscular Zack Snyder. Snyder jokes about Gunn’s Superman movie, saying, “Just saw your new cut of ‘Superman,’ and word of advice, he’s the ‘Man of Steel,’ not the ‘Man of Conversation.’ Do more shots of him punching!” Snyder then talks about Rick Sanchez, explaining to Gunn that Rick is known for being the smartest man in the universe and doesn’t really represent typical fans.
Later, Rick, Morty, and Jerry get sucked into the Movie-lizer and become new villains in the Maximum Velocitree movie. When their characters die, Gunn tearfully says, “They did it! What an ending! They out-done the Gunn!”
After the story ends, Gunn takes the Movie-lizer’s hard drive to Warner Bros., telling the boss that this could change Hollywood for the better. The boss agrees and says, “Give this man a sundae!” But then, in a funny twist, Gunn is killed by a gun called “Sundae.”
Scott Marder said he’s excited for fans to see this episode. He thinks it has all the classic Rick and Morty fun and also some cool surprises. The idea of the Movie-lizer came from the writers’ room. It was first going to be called the “Book-alizer” about Jerry writing a novel, but then they switched it to movies. The fake Maximum Velocitree is a nod to franchises like Transformers and Fast and Furious.
Marder explained that if they were going to poke fun at Hollywood, they wanted to include their bosses, so they thought about Warner Bros. James Gunn was an obvious choice to play the villain. Marder said they thought Gunn would be busy with Superman but were surprised that he agreed immediately and even got permission from Warner Bros. fast. Gunn even recorded his lines the morning after finishing principal production on Superman.
Marder said, “I think Gunn called people over him to make sure that this wasn’t going to mess anything up. And it looked like he got the green light pretty quickly.” He added that both Gunn and Snyder were great to work with and joked about how lucky he felt to have such big names on the show.
Dan Harmon, the co-creator of Rick and Morty, helped write the funny Superman dialogue between Gunn and Snyder. Marder said Harmon was excited to make sure the episode lived up to having them involved. Gunn and Snyder recorded their parts one after the other and even took a picture that went viral, but the show managed to keep their cameos a secret until now.
The episode also touches on the idea of fan debates about big franchises, sequels, and long-running series like Superman and Rick and Morty. Marder said, “Writing is really hard. It’s a lot easier to sit on your couch and nitpick something than it is to do the heavy lifting of doing it yourself.” The episode shows Rick and Morty trying to make a better movie but learning that it’s not as simple as it looks.
Even though Gunn’s character gets shot at the end, there’s a chance he could come back since he’s now part of Rick and Morty’s world. Snyder enjoyed being on the show so much that he asked to do more. Marder said, “I direct all the voices, so I directed both those guys, and Snyder left, and he came back like a fan, saying, ‘I’ll do anything for the show. Throw me a tag. Throw me a thing.’”
When asked if there might be a Snyder cut of the episode, Marder laughed and said, “That would be cool. I do love a good Snyder cut!”
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