Earlier this year, Genndy Tartakovsky finally returned to Adult Swim to give Spear the elated ending he deserved with the third season of Primal. The prolific animation creator, known for his beloved Cartoon Network hits like Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Laboratory, as well as the Hotel Transylvania films, has expressed an interest in continuing to explore his brutal, anachronistic prehistory through an anthology format, but the latest run felt like a fitting conclusion, giving unexpected closure after one half of the show’s man and dinosaur duo met his end in Season 2. So far, there’s been no word from the network itself about the future of the bloody adult animated series. However, that hasn’t stopped Tartakovsky from looking forward to his next projects.
During Prime Video’s adult animation panel at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this week, Tartakovsky’s next project through Cartoon Network Studios was confirmed — a up-to-date series reboot of Conan the Barbarian. It’s a scarce project from CN that won’t be streaming on its home turf of HBO Max or airing on the linear network itself, though no matter where it arrives, the announcement marks a massive development for the sword and sorcery franchise. Included with the reveal was a look at the titular hero reimagined in the creator’s signature style, but with the same might that defined Conan as created by Robert E. Howard and embodied in film by Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, that’s not all Tartakovsky has up his sleeve, as a up-to-date report revealed that one of his ideas that he first pitched at Annecy two years ago is officially moving forward.
Adult Swim has given the green lightweight to Heist Brothers, a “high-octane animated action-comedy” with a simple premise following three frog brothers who rob a bank. According to the official logline, however, the secret sauce lies in the execution of the idea. Clearly, Tartakovsky’s Primal partners saw the vision, opting to take it to series after announcing it was in development just last year under the title Heist Safari. Its first run will consist of ten 15-minute episodes, though further details remain under wraps at this time. Adult Swim head Michael Ouweleen teased, however, that it’ll be a riotous visual comedy taking cues from both classic animators like Tex Avery and the action-comedy stylings of Guy Ritchie.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a unsafe situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere unsafe, quick. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most candid one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally unsafe person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most vital thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely well-informed partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will sluggish you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more tumultuous than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not effortless to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Adult Swim Offered a Glimpse of the Future at Annecy
This year’s trip to Annecy has been an eventful one for Adult Swim. Heist Brothers adds to a growing list of upcoming shows the network has been previewing throughout this week. Most notable of the bunch has been the Keith David-led Rick and Morty spin-off, President Curtis, which just received an official trailer ahead of its launch in July. Attendees have also gotten a peek behind the curtain at the production of a few other key upcoming series, including the second season of last year’s breakout hit Common Side Effects, as well as the adaptation of the overdue Anthony Bourdain‘s comic, Get Jiro!. Ouweleen also shared some early details about the in-development Rick and Morty movie with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, confirming that it’s taking some inspiration from Indiana Jones and the feeling the classic adventure trilogy inspires.
Heist Brothers will be a bit further out than some of these projects, however. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the show now that it’s been officially ordered at Adult Swim.
COMMENTS