Seth Rogen Explains Why The Boys Movie Never Happened, But The TV Show Did

"The Boys" is gearing up for its third season on Amazon Prime Video this summer, and one of the show's stars, Jack Quaid, has teased that it's "even more messed up" than the first two seasons. The violent anti-superhero series, based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, counts Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg among its executive producers, with Eric Kripke serving as the show's creative developer. When season 3 wrapped production last summer, I wrote that "The Boys" is "boisterous and bloody and not for the faint of heart or the sensitive of ears."

It's also not for moviegoers, apparently. In an episode of First We Feast's "Hot Ones" series on YouTube (via ScreenRant), Rogen revealed that he and Goldberg first had "The Boys" in mind as a potential film project. They took it to Sony, where it languished in development hell for years, only to come rebounding back to them later, at which point they decided to go the TV route with it. Rogen explained:

"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."

Films like "Deadpool," "Logan," and "Joker" have shown that R-rated superhero fare is possible on the big screen, but even they look light compared to "The Boys." Rogen seems more attracted to edgier fare — which is Ennis' stock and trade. As Rogen pointed out, he also adapted the Ennis comic, "Preacher," into an AMC series. 

Rogen acknowledged that in this superhero-obsessed entertainment climate, "The Boys" can do things that more mainstream studios like Marvel can't. He said:

"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, it would be too damaging to their brand to have a character kill someone with their 10-inch d***."

Season 3 of "The Boys" kicks off on Amazon on June 3, 2022.