Rick and Morty‘s first spinoff that isn’t a variation on Rick and Morty (like its short-lived anime variant) arrives in just a few weeks. President Curtis, focusing on the mainline show’s POTUS voiced by Keith David, hits Adult Swim July 26, following Rick and Morty‘s season nine finale. In a new interview, co-creators Dan Harmon and James Siciliano talked about why President Andre Curtis was their top choice among Rick and Morty‘s supporting characters to get his own series—and how he’ll be slightly different than the man we’ve previously seen in action. Speaking to Deadline, Harmon explained that Curtis, being the leader of the free world with his own mysteries to poke into, was “the character who could have their own self-contained world that wouldn’t be redundantly overlapping.” The idea for President Curtis has been percolating since season five back in 2021, when Curtis played a big role in “Rick and Morty’s Thanksploitation Spectacular” (you know, the one where Rick and Curtis’ feud escalates to them both turning themselves into turkeys).
“That’s where the conversation started—just seeing what Keith David brings to that character and that he could sustain that level of toe-to-toeness with Rick,” Siciliano recalled. “We could also see [President Curtis’] world—Spider FDR, the French assassin hidden in the Statue of Liberty, and a little more of the National Treasure/X-Files stuff. That was the fabric of what we wanted to do with the show.”
