The Boys Creator Shares His Biggest Fear About The Prime Video Series

Series creator and showrunner Eric Kripke confronts quite a few major societal fears in his hit Prime Video series “The Boys,” ranging from the dangers of late-stage capitalism to police brutality. It’s a show with enough head-popping, gory, and otherwise utterly disturbing moments to impress even the most die-hard horror fan. However, there’s apparently there’s only one thing that scares Kripke when it comes to the franchise, and it’s honestly kind of tame by comparison. Then again, nothing on this planet is as terrifying as Homelander, the nightmarish vision of someone like Donald Trump if he had Superman’s powers. 

In an interview with Collider, Kripke revealed that his biggest fear for “The Boys” and its various spin-offs would be for the property to become the very thing it’s been satirizing this whole time. It might seem a little silly for the guy behind the ultimate superhero satire to basically be quoting the “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” line from Christopher Nolan’s Batman film “The Dark Knight,” but his concerns are actually pretty understandable.

Kripke explained to Collider that while the future of “The Boys” itself looks bright despite the series ending with season 5, he worries that the upcoming spinoffs might eventually be too much:

“I live in absolute terror of becoming the thing we’ve been satirizing for five years . The thing about ‘The Boys’ is that it’s punk rock, and it hurts extra hard when punk rockers sell out. I’m really working hard to not sell out. We do these shows because we really care about them and we’re passionate about them, and they can tell fresh stories that we can’t tell in ‘The Boys’ and not just be about rapid expansion but be very careful and mindful about the choices we’re making and being able to defend why we’re making them. I worry about that every single day. I just want people to say, maybe it’s for them and maybe it isn’t for them, but gotta hand it to them, they maintain a consistent level of quality.”

In addition to the animated anthology series “The Boys Presents: Diabolical” and the absolutely excellent college-based “Gen V,” there are also plans for a spinoff show titled “The Boys: Mexico” that tells a supe story south of the border, along with a prequel series called “Vought Rising” (which will see Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash reprising their roles as Soldier Boy and Clara Vought aka Stormfront). That’s a lot of “The Boys.” If Kripke and his team aren’t very careful, they could indeed easily end up becoming the very thing they once mocked.

“The Boys” is ending with season 5 for a couple of different reasons (including something about “magic numbers,” according to Kripke), and a part of that is likely a desire to end the series before it turns into a parody of itself. Shows that go on for too long can sometimes fall victim to this and it takes a lot of careful work to ensure that things stay fresh. Instead of continuing the main “The Boys” story, Kripke and his team are expanding the world created by comic book writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson via other shows that will have their own unique constraints. Will that be enough to keep things fresh and prevent the larger “Boys” property from suffering the same problems as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and similarly big franchises? Only time will tell. 

For now, fans of “The Boys” have season 5 to look forward to. Between that and the other truly incredible subversive superhero TV shows that are currently on television, things shouldn’t really be that bad, even if “The Boys” does eventually lose its punk cred. At least, you know, so far as having lots of hyper-violent superhero series to watch goes.