Earlier this year, Adult Swim and Hulu parted ways with Rick and Morty co-creator and star Justin Roiland following domestic violence charges (which were later dropped) and a series of resurfaced offensive comments.
While it's been confirmed that sound-alikes will be used for Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites has gone down a very different route.
Roiland will obviously not be reprising his role as Korvo following those well-publicised controversies; instead, Beauty and the Beast and Legion star Dan Stevens is stepping in to take over the role. If what we've heard from the actor in trailers is any indication, he's definitely not attempting to imitate Roiland's performance.
Talking to ComicBook.com, Solar Opposites producer Sydney Ryan explained why the decision was made to make such a drastic change to how Korvo sounds.
"We didn't want to match the previous voice and felt like it would come across like we were doing a cover song," she explains. "Solar is a show where wild stuff can happen, and since the aliens already have ray guns that can do all sorts of things, we thought it would be funny to use this in-show method to explain the voice change."
"Even with a big shift, we still wanted to preserve the humor and emotional aspects that we've built for Korvo over the years. We worked with our casting team, listened to a ton of auditions, and met with some incredible actors."
As for what led to Stevens being cast in the role, Ryan credits Executive Vice President and Head of 20th Television Animation, Marci Proietto, for suggesting him.
"We were surprised to learn that Dan was already a fan of the show and as soon as he read for Korvo, it just felt right," she notes. "For a minute, there was discussion of having him use his American accent... but there was something so funny about what a huge change going with this natural British accent would be, we just had to do it."
"Dan is hilarious and a phenomenal actor and we're incredibly lucky to have him on Solar."
In the show, a team of four aliens escape their exploding home world only to crash land into a move-in-ready home in suburban America. They are evenly split on whether Earth is awful or awesome.
Korvo (Justin Roiland Dan Stevens) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) only see the pollution, crass consumerism, and human frailty while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) love humans and all their TV, junk food and fun stuff.
Their mission: protect the Pupa, a living supercomputer that will one day evolve into its true form, consume them and terraform the Earth.
Solar Opposites returns to Hulu today, on August 15, with eleven new episodes. A Valentine's Day special will follow next year.