Adult Swim Announces Original Venture Bros., Metalocalypse and Aqua Teen Movies

Adult Swim will be reviving three of its most popular shows in an exciting new form: the motion picture.

The network announced today that Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse would all be returning with original movies from the original creators. The films will debut on Blu-ray/DVD and VOD before later airing on HBO Max and Adult Swim. No timeline has been revealed for the movies, but given the continued fan outcry for each of these shows—especially Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse—you can bet that many people will be excited by this news.

This won’t be the first movie for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, of course. One of Adult Swim’s original programs, and essentially its flagship show for the network’s first 15 years, Aqua Teen inspired a theatrical film that was released in 2007. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters was written and directed by the show’s creators, Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, and might be best remembered today for an ill-fated guerilla marketing campaign involving Lite-Brite images of the Mooninites that incited an absurd bomb panic in Boston. I was living in Boston at the time, and yep: that whole thing was ridiculous. The logline for the new Aqua Teen movie doesn’t reveal much, simply stating that “fans will find out what happens next with Frylock, Meatwad and Master Shake.”

The Venture Bros. was almost as long-lived as Aqua Teen. Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer’s serialized satire of superhero comics and various other adventure series premiered as a pilot in 2003 before launching as a regular series a year-and-a-half later. It ran for seven seasons between 2004 and 2018, with a surprising cancellation in 2020 abruptly ending the show’s run. When that cancellation was revealed Adult Swim announced they were trying to find a way for Publick and Hammer to continue the story; looks like this movie is what they settled on.

Metalocalypse didn’t last as long as either of those shows in its original run, but it might have the most passionate fanbase of any Adult Swim program. Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha’s loving parody of metal culture aired four seasons and a special between 2006 and 2013, and although there was a large fan campaign to give the show a proper send-off, nothing ever came of it. Eight years used to be a long time in pop culture, but given how many old and seemingly forgotten concepts have been revived over the years, bringing back something with this amount of fan interest seems like a no-brainer.

Here are the official blurbs on each project from Adult Swim’s press release:

Metalocalypse: The power-hungry TRIBUNAL unveils their secret and deadly “Falconback Project” as the world grows in embattled chaos and the menacing Doomstar breaches the Earth’s atmosphere while the mysterious and twisted dissent of a band member threatens the future of Dethklok. Picking up directly after the heroic rescue of Toki Wartooth: Can Dethklok choose between their egos and the greater good of the world to embark on a gauntlet of dangers that will try their very souls and finally write the song that will be their salvation? The new movie is created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blancha. The movie soundtrack will be released on WaterTower Music.

The Venture Bros.: Doc’s latest invention will either bankrupt the Ventures or launch them to new heights, as Hank searches for himself, Dean searches for Hank, The Monarch searches for answers, and a mysterious woman from their pasts threatens to bring their entire world crashing down on them. The Venture Bros. is created, written and executive produced by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: A continuation of the hit animated series, fans will find out what happens next with Frylock, Meatwad and Master Shake, who consider themselves crime fighters, but the truth is they never fight crime. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is created by Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis and follows the strange everyday lives of three human-sized food products living in New Jersey.