Rick and Morty season 8 sadly isn't coming in 2024 (and there's a good reason why)

All good things must eventually come to an end, and sadly that includes Rick and Morty’s ability to turn out new episodes annually for the last several years. 

Fans have come to expect new episodes of the Emmy-winning animated series every year and the show’s creative team has been able to bring fans new episodes annually for the last several seasons. Unfortunately, there will be no new episodes of Rick and Morty dropping in 2024 with the show’s eighth season being pushed back to 2025. 

It’s still unclear when exactly the new episodes will drop in 2025, but what we do know is that the reason for this delay tracks back to the writers’ and actors’ stikes of 2023 which delayed production on season 8 and forced Adult Swim to push back the show’s return. While the strikes might have ended in the fall of 2023, the 5-month writers’ strike and 4-month actors’ strike created waves within the industry that pushed back the production schedules of several hit series which has resulted in a wave of delays within the industry. 

For those who did not keep up with the events of the historic strikes, the strikes essentially brought Hollywood to its knees for several months as production on shows and movies ground to a halt. While some projects were able to continue filming for a few months during the writers’ strike, once the actors’ strike began in July, work on scripted projects such as Rick and Morty came to a complete stop and it wasn’t until the writers’ and actors’ unions inked their respective new deals that production was able to resume on series. 

While live-action shows such as broadcast series were able to get things up and running in time for shows to return as early as January 2024, many animated series and series that feature extensive filming schedules have seen their returns delayed.

The good news is that the creative team behind Rick and Morty has been hard at work and season 8 should arrive in 2025, and while we wait, Adult Swim has helped to bridge the gap with the release of a new anime spinoff series, Rick and Morty: The Anime. 

The 10-episode first season of the show hails from director Takahi Sano, who previously worked on anime shorts Rick and Morty vs. Genocider and Summer Meets God (Rick Meets Evil), kicked off on August 15 and will run through October with the finale expected to release on Oct. 18.  

We also know that Rick and Morty will be making its way to New York Comic Con this October which means we might learn more about when exactly season 8 will arrive during the show’s panel, and perhaps even get a few new details about what’s to come when the show finally returns in 2025.