Music Licensing Decides Whether Hit & Run Returns
Matt Groening may have accidentally revealed that The Simpsons: Hit & Run is a 2003 racing game now beloved by cult players. It could return.
He said this at D23 in front of thousands. Then showrunner Matt Selman immediately added "or not," creating perfect ambiguity. Was it a slip or a coordinated tease?
The actual question is whether it matters at all. The answer depends on something nobody can see yet. Whether Fox's legal team has already spent months untangling music licensing rights is the key question.
Licensed game revivals fail at remarkable rates. When Activision tried to revive Blur in 2011, licensing expired before development could finish. THQ went bankrupt in 2012 still holding the shell of licensed titles it could neither complete nor sell. Marvel, UFC, WWE properties all froze mid-development because the original rights deals had built-in expiration dates. Hit & Run licensed specific soundtracks for a 2003 game when those licensing deals cost nothing like what they cost now. Renegotiating every song, every artist, every performance right across territories is a two-year legal archaeology project that either happens in silence or never happens at all.
If this was actually coordinated, the very fact that they announced anything at all signals the hard work is done.
If Groening genuinely slipped something unintended, Fox's legal and business teams would have no mechanism to retrieve it. But damage control for a license revival looks like silence, not further comment. If this was actually coordinated, the very fact that they announced anything at all signals the hard work is done. The licensing is locked, the announcement exists because they can afford to make it. Watch for one detail over the next six months. Whether any actual production studio gets named, not "in development" but a studio, will be significant. That detail tells you everything about whether attention is being spent on fantasy or whether someone, somewhere, is actually writing code.
