The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke shares why he doesn’t want to keep making more spinoff series after the upcoming superhero college spinoff, Gen V.
Eric Kripke, showrunner for The Boys, says that he doesn’t want to keep pumping out more spinoffs of the hit series. Based on the comic series of the same name, The Boys first premiered on Amazon Prime on July 26, 2019. The show would become one of Prime’s most successful original programs, and was renewed for several seasons. Season 3 ended on July 8, 2022, and season 4 is already in the works.
After two highly successful seasons, it was announced in September of 2020 that The Boys would have a spinoff series, entitled Gen V. The series will follow a superhero college run by Vought International and will explore the young adult Supes as they navigate college life while also having powers. Gen V will star Jaz Sinclair and Lizzie Broadway, with Patrick Schwarzenegger playing the recurring role of Golden Boy. The series is set to wrap filming in October of 2022, with no set release date as of yet.
In an interview with The Wrap, Kripke says there isn’t the need to jam spinoffs into The Boys universe. When it comes to Gen V, Kripke says that the producers “stumbled onto this idea,” as opposed to actively looking for potential spinoff plots. Kripke says that Gen V will bring an honest, realistic look at college life to television, something which hasn’t been done very often in the past. Read Kripke’s full comment below:
“Me and Seth and Evan and Craig Rosenberg, we don’t feel the need to jam spinoffs out there. We were just talking and we stumbled onto this idea and we were so excited about it, we took it to Amazon. Because we think there’s a real opportunity to see another part of the Vought world. But probably, more importantly, to make a show that isn’t really made that often, which is what we love about it, which is, as ‘The Boys’ is an unflinching look at reality, the goal for this is to make this superhero show one of the most realistic college shows anyone’s made. And really deal with real college issues and really explore what it’s like to be that age.”
While Gen V has great promise, Kripke’s previous attempts at spinoffs from his series haven’t been successful. Kripke’s CW series Supernatural produced a spinoff series in 2014 entitled Supernatural: Bloodlines, but was not picked up after the pilot. A second spinoff series called Supernatural: Wayward Sisters was attempted in 2018, but met the same fate as Bloodlines. It wasn’t until 2021, a full year after Supernatural came to an end, that Kripke would finally get a spinoff off the ground, with the Supernatural prequel series The Winchesters set to premiere on October 11, 2022.
Unlike Kripke’s past spinoff failures, Gen V seems to have come from a natural plot idea rather than an attempt at extending The Boys franchise. And, with series like The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Supernatural launching new spinoff series within the next year, it seems that spinoffs may be on a popularity rise. With The Boys season 3 being so well-received, perhaps the timing of Gen V will be perfect enough to finally give Kripke a successful spinoff series.
Source: The Wrap
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