Posted in: Adult Swim, Rick and Morty, TV | Tagged: james gunn, rick and morty, zack snyder

Rick and Morty Showrunner on Working with James Gunn, Zack Snyder

Rick and Morty Showrunner Scott Marder discusses what it was like working with James Gunn and Zack Snyder for S08E07: "Ricker Than Fiction."

This weekend's episode of Adult Swim's Rick and Morty covered a whole lot of satirical ground, takin gon Warner Bros., film franchises, toxic fandom, and more in one of the animated series' most "meta" episodes yet. But what made S08E07: "Ricker Than Fiction" truly stand out were appearances by DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn and Zack Snyder – you know, the two filmmakers who are supposedly at war with one another (at least according to their respective fanbases)?

Speaking with Variety, Showrunner Scott Marder offered some insights into landing the two for the special episode and much more. A couple of interesting tidbits before jumping into Marder's deep dives: Gunn recorded his lines for the episode the morning after completing principal production on Superman, series co-creator Dan Harmon was involved in writing the "Superman" back-and-forth between Gunn and Snyder, and Snyder is up for returning. Oh, and that image that Gunn and Snyder shared of the two of them together from a while back? Yup… now here's a look at some highlights from Marder:

Marder on Bringing Gunn and Snyder Aboard: "They were good sports. 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. There were probably, frankly, even more digs and more silly things we could have used. All they did was laugh it off."

Marder on Targeting Warner Bros. Discovery, Inviting Gunn: "We were like, if we're going to do a movie and we're going skewer Hollywood, we feel like we have to include our bosses. So we started thinking about Warner Bros. Who'd be a good face to be kind of the villain here? James Gunn just seemed like such a good choice. We were all pretty sure that whenever Schrab reached out Gunn he would be a million percent in the middle of doing 'Superman.' But he not only did he respond instantly with a yes, but I think he ran it up the chain at Warner Bros. that same day. We had people on our production side who were like, 'How is it that James Gunn and Zaslav and all these people already know about this episode?' We didn't think it would actually move this quickly."

Marder on Calling Out Geek Fandom: "For sure, it's a very high-class situation to have such a passionate audience. It was certainly very organic to the episode. You're always hearing how everyone could do it better and how it seems so easy. Rick and Morty think they can make a better movie. They're given the keys to the kingdom. And it's not as easy as it seems. 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. So that was all the stuff that we tried to do in a really fun, quick, kinetic way in this episode, without being too up on a soapbox."

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