The boys became one of Top Videos exclusive TV series; it got thousands of views and has already spawned two different spinoff shows. But all of this would never have happened if the creators’ original plans for the franchise hadn’t fallen through. The boys it almost became a trilogy of big-screen films.
The franchise is based on an independent graphic novel by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, which was published from 2006 to 2012. Just a few months after the book’s release, a Boys the adaptation began to attract interest from Hollywood.
A new piece in Rolling Stone reveals that after Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg read The boys debut edition and helped bring the material to Sony. From there, the project was developed at Sony for a full decade before becoming The boys television series (developed by Eric Kripke). In fact, the article states, “for a time, the director Adam McKay I was trying to turn The boys in a trilogy of films – the first reached a finished script and even cut-scene demonstration animations – but he failed to get the green light in a pre-MCU Hollywood.
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It’s kind of wild to imagine The boys in a world before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that’s how long ago the original comic book debuted. And maybe that’s why it took so long for the show to happen; actually made a lot more sense as a response to and satire on the world of comic books and comic book movies after they became even more popular thanks to the MCU and similar proliferation of DC Comics adaptations in recent years.
The boys was recently renewed for a fifth season on Prime Video, which will also be its last batch of episodes.
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There must be some reason for the character’s absence – usually a sudden death – and the more absurd, the better.
Gallery credit: Emma Stefansky