Oh, thank god, the Venture Bros. movie is still happening
Series creator Jackson Publick tweeted out the first image from the upcoming film to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary this week
In a pop culture world that seems to be increasingly on the verge of some kind of cataclysmic collapse—as basically every major network looks over at the teetering, creaking pile of streaming content it’s spent the last few years (and billions of dollars) assembling into a tower, with a distinct “Uh-oh” look on their faces—you have to take what comforts you can get. An actor you love getting another shot at stardom. An underdog series scoring a surprise renewal (that hopefully won’t be suddenly revoked). And, yeah: Confirmation that the Venture Bros. movie is still, against all odds, actually happening.
Fans of the Adult Swim series got confirmation of that latter happy little fact earlier this week, when series creator Jackson Publick paid homage to the 20th—Jesus!—anniversary of the animated series’ pilot by tweeting out the first image from the upcoming film. (It’s of “Swedish Murder Machine” and prime Patrick Warburton role Brock Samson, contrasted in Publick’s tweet with a shot of the character from said pilot. He’s bulkier now!)
The Venture Bros. movie was announced back in 2021, during an altogether more expansive phase of Warner Bros.’ approach to online content; it was actually part of a slate of Adult Swim revival films, which also included the movie that eventually became Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm (and, alongside it, a new run of Aqua Teen episodes) and an as-yet unseen sequel movie to Brendon Small’s Metalocalypse. The plot synopsis released for the Venture Bros. movie at the time basically promised to address (or deliberately, anti-climactically not address, as is the show’s remit) many of the questions raised in its final episode, which aired back in 2018: How are Dr. Venture and The Monarch related? Who is the boys’ mom? Does Hank have undiagnosed ADHD? (Almost certainly, in the latter case.)
Fans would be forgiven for losing a bit of faith: Publick and co-writer Doc Hammer have been fairly quiet about the follow-up film, outside of releasing a Venture-based Christmas song last year. Also: Warner Bros. Discovery has been taking a series of chainsaws to its HBO Max content plans, so it’s not like a little doubt wasn’t in order. That being said, those same cuts have mostly avoided the Adult Swim stuff—and, we can’t help but note, two years of silence is, like, nothing for The Venture Bros., a show that maintained a decidedly glacial pace as it deployed 81 episodes of TV across a massive 14 years on the air. Either way: No word yet on when the movie will actually arrive.