Seth Rogen on how The Boys can do what Marvel can’t

The world has been obsessed with superhero movies for over 10 years now, with Marvel leading the charge. Tentpole superhero movies and shows have been coming out for so long now that some studios are producing counter-programming. Take, for instance, The Boys, Prime Video’s show about superheroes hopelessly corrupted by greed and power. These heroes don’t save anyone unless it’s to generate good publicity; more often than not, they’re monsters.

This is not, to put it mildly, a path Marvel would ever choose. And according to executive producer Seth Rogen, that’s the point. “I think people love superhero stuff and Marvel is obviously very popular and makes great films and TV shows, but there are certain things they can’t do,” he said on an episode of Hot Ones. “[I]t would be too damaging to their brand to have a character kill someone with their 10-inch d***.”

That’s actually a thing that happens on The Boys, by the way, although if I recall correctly it was quite a bit longer than that.

Why The Boys never became a movie

The Boys is a hit for Prime Video, but at first it was supposed to be a movie. As Rogen explains, he and his producing partner Evan Goldberg loved Garth Ennis’ original comic and took it to Sony, but it didn’t work out:

"Something like The Boys was obvious to us. It’s a funny journey with the comic, me and Evan, we’re big fans of Garth Ennis, he wrote the comic and he wrote Preacher as well, we bought the first issue when it came out and we were like, ‘Oh my god, this would make a great movie. Regular people fighting superheroes.’ We brought it to Sony and Neal Moritz, the producer, and they were like, ‘Yeah, this would make an incredible movie, we’ll buy the rights to it.’ Then they did and they did not hire us to write it or produce it in any way shape or form. [Laughs] They hired other people to do that and after like a decade of those people f—ing it up in some shape or form, it came back to us and we turned it into the TV show."

Sony’s loss is Amazon’s gain.

Jensen Ackles doesn’t want his mom watching him in The Boys season 3

It’s onward and upward with The Boys, which premieres its third season later this year. One of the new cast members is Supernatural veteran Jensen Ackles, who will play a character named Soldier Boy; think Captain America, except a racist and a coward and a power-hungry shill. It sounds very The Boys.

Speaking on the new podcast Supernatural Then and Now, Ackles described his experience on the show as “super great.” However, given the kind of stuff that happens on The Boys, he’s careful with who he talks it up to. “I’ve told my family to not watch it,” Ackles said. “But everybody else should watch it. But… just not my mother.”

The Boys season 3 premieres on Prime Video on June 3.

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h/t SlashFilm