411 On Ricky and Morty

1. The show was budgeted for 14 episodes for season three but due to various factors; only got 10 episodes made. As such, there is a surplus budget that the producers are sitting on.

2. When negotiations for season four began, Adult Swim noted that Roiland and Harmon are sitting on 2/7ths of the budget of season three still....

3. As such, Adult Swim tells Roiland and Harmon that their proposed budget for season four will be LESS than previous seasons and that the MIA morning will be "made up" by the money Roiland and Harmon are sitting on, from the four episodes they never gave Adult Swim.

4. Needless to say, Roiland and Harmon are not amused. And told Adult Swim, they'd prefer their FULL budget PLUS the budget for the four episodes they never made.

5. Roiland and Harmon counteroffer: ten episodes of season four at the normal budget PLUS eight "mini-episodes" using the budget left over from season three, that will be aired randomly during the hiatus between seasons three and four and four and five.

6. Adult Swim refuses.

7. Harmon and Roiland (who have an escape clause contract to take the show to another network/streaming site) uses the money they are sitting on to make a mini-season four, which they plan on shopping around to the major streaming websites/rival networks.

8. Adult Swim threaten to call their bluff

9. Harmon jumps the gun, announces the show hasn't been renewed when he realizes Adult Swim AREN'T bluffing for PR reasons to de-escalate and use the fans to force Adult Swim to bend the knee to him.

Attached: tumblr_inline_n0op8nq0sb1qmqtm3.jpg (500x432, 53K)

Interesting if true.

Attached: 1462935003555.jpg (1076x876, 238K)

Sounds like Harmon fucked up the budget and deserves to be called an idiot

Harmon is a guy I would enjoy seeing beaten up on video.

To be fair, they did something similar to Venture Brothers. Fucked them out of two episodes last season by telling them the special they greenlighted (All This And Garganua One) was coming out of their budget for the season after previously telling them, they considered it a stand-alone and wouldn't count towards the budget for the season

well that's different than being given the money for 14, making 10 and then demanding that the extra money just be overlooked.

>Use less budget than necessary
>"See you got budget left , means we can give a bit less because you still got budget left!"
>Creators lose their shit
The creators are in the wrong here.

If they can truly take the show somewhere else, adult swim is totally fucked and look like morons. The hottest animated show in years, selling metric butt tons of merchandise, and they won't shell out for the usual budget?

I mean, I know [as] isn't very big or wealthy, and I don't know how much money [as] gets from that merch, or the ad revenue during the show, but this seems like a no brainer. But Lazzo is an idiot, so we'll see. Not that Harmon isn't an idiot too, but he's not the one who's got everything to lose on this deal.

well MAYBE use less and maybe use all of it on hookers and blow but only make 2/3 of what you're supposed to

First Alex with Disney.

Then this.

Is there a crazy creator who got his own show canceled on Nickelodeon? It would complete the trifuckta.

that depends if other places are willing to work with Harmon. with the #metoo movement in full swing, I doubt most streaming sites & networks would touch them with a 10 foot pole

I guess C.H. Greenblatt would fit the bill. A few months into the run of his show Harvey Beaks, he started making vocal complaints about the way the show was being treated at Nickelodeon, which may have started up some bad blood between him and the network.

Though to be fair, the way Harvey Beaks was treated before and after his complaints is essentially how Nickelodeon has treated most of their cartoons in the past decade: Show starts off with a few weeks of episodes, gets put on hiatus for several months, returns but airs like two 11-minute episodes on average a month, eventually premieres dwindle and vanish until they suddenly do a "bomb" (which is the first sign of trouble, since Nick doesn't normally do "bombs" with shows they actually want), it disappears again, then the remaining episodes eventually gets shafted to Nicktoons and dies quietly in obscurity.

Nick gave Harvey Beaks a pretty rough treatment, actually.

>uses the money they are sitting on to make a mini-season four, which they plan on shopping around to the major streaming websites/rival networks.
while I don't know (or care) if R&M is owned enough by them to take it from [AS], I sincerely doubt using that money to make something they didn't ask for as an attempt to get someone else to buy their shit is legal

good news

he deserves to be called an idiot regardless

Nowhere in that statement does it say that the Venture Bros. creators pocketed unspent money.

This fits perfectly with my view of Dan Harmon being the Tim Schafer of television.

Imagine if this show gets cancelled due to bean counting kikery. Fucking disgraceful.

>who have an escape clause contract to take the show to another network/streaming site
This is the part I don't believe.

So why didn't the bluff work if they DID have an escape clause, and how does one negotiate an escape clause like that when selling a show to begin with? I imagine if you ever pitch a show to a network and slide that into a contract, they're going to say fuck no immediately and pass on your show.

I'm interested in what it takes to be a good negotiator when pitching a show and it's a rarely talked about subject with showrunners.

That's not how budgets work. It's not a lump sum of cash given to showrunners, it's allocated funding that is disbursed as needed. Any budget surplus would never be given to them in the first place.

Nah, he didn't touch anybody, and the girl who called him out practically sucked his dick after he apologized. It's a non-issue compared to him generally being an alcoholic dickhead coworker.

Do not assume Harmon will be anything but the fuck up that ruins everything for them.

Venture Brothers has a history of going overbudget so this is not a huge surprise. They insisted on keeping traditional animation for way too long which slowed down everything and drove the budget past what AS was willing to pay for several times.

Nick did drop Korra off their on air channel to streaming after Nick Mexico dropped the ball and leaked four episodes early.

adult swim can go fuck itself if they think saving money for continuing the franchise isn't a good idea.

if sticklers for rules and bureaucrats bitch and cry about an escape clause, roiland and harmon should leave adult swim on principle. the only thing adult swim even has left is venture bros

>can't into fiscal responsibility

>metoo
and there's a backlash from it if they're trying to burn people at the stake and do away with due process on college campuses

The only gut in the Thread knowing what he is talking about.

fpbp

if this is true that's pretty fucking retarded, like Harmon a shit, but as is full of it if they think they're not getting their moneys worth in merch alone. unless someone has the numbers on hand to say otherwise.

Nah, Adult Swim gave Doc & Jackson a budget for 10 half hours and they decided to do a special first, it was a creative choice.

Dan Harmon literally did not do his job and now is suprised that he is fired.

Didn't Alex choose to end the series because of creative reasons? Or is there something more to the story?

Fucking provide source before we get into another flame war

They had enough clout to attract all sorts of guest VAs

Presumably user is talking about Disney’s aversion to airing the show with a modicum of regularity which made two seasons strech out over four years.