The Boys Showrunner on New Spinoff, Soldier Boys Big Role in Final Season and Horr

June 2024 · 6 minute read

“The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke says that newly announced spinoff series “Vought Rising” will be “‘L.A. Confidential’ with superheroes” — and that he’s been planning the prequel show, led by Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy and Aya Cash’s Stormfront, for quite a while.

“We’ve actually had this idea in our pocket for a really long time,” Kripke told Variety during an interview after the show’s Comic-Con panel Friday. “And in fact, when I went to Amazon, to pitch spinoffs, I came with two spinoffs, ‘Gen V’ and ‘Vought Rising.’ And at the time, they said, ‘Let’s start with “Gen V,”‘ and we’ll see how it goes and then maybe we’ll do ‘Rising.’ It turns out it went OK. I’m just fascinated with the history of how we became who we became. ‘The Boys’ itself is basically a film noir. It’s like cops and robbers. So to really do it classically with like fedoras and trench coats and salacious stuff, and like ‘L.A. Confidential’ with superheroes, is just going to be super fun. And Jensen and Aya, they’re superstars. They’re gonna blow the doors off.”

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Along with the announcement of the “Vought Rising” prequel series, it was confirmed during “The Boys” panel that Ackles will also be reprising his role as Soldier Boy for the mothership’s fifth and final season — something that was teased in a mid-credits scene in the Season 4 finale.

“He’s going to be in Season 5 quite a lot,” Kripke said. “We want him to be a big character. There’s a lot of good father-son emotion between him and Homelander that we never really got a chance to play that we’re really interested in.”

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As Kripke has been teasing since before Season 4 premiered, he’s still in talks with Jared Padalecki to get him onto “The Boys” Season 5 in some way, to add to the long list of “Supernatural” alums who have appeared on his superhero series, including Ackles and, new for Season 4, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. (Kripke created “Supernatural” and ran it for the first five of its 15 seasons.) But he still doesn’t know who Padalecki will play, as they are currently working that out in the writers’ room.

“I have been talking to Jared, we’ve been texting back and forth,” Kripke said. “I don’t know yet if it’ll be a one-episode guest spot or something bigger. We’re still trying to figure out what would be the best role for him. But I’m gonna bring in Jared. Everyone says, you’re collecting your ‘Supernatural’ Pokémon, but the truth is, I love him and you try to work with people that you love and it makes the job more fun. And I just love those guys.”

When the Season 4 finale dropped on July 18, it was just days after an assassination attempt on former U.S. president — and current presidential candidate — Donald Trump. The episode, which continued a season-long storyline surrounding attempts to assassinate both the president-elect and vice president-elect, was titled “Assassination Run,” but retitled to simply “Season Four Finale” and added a “viewer discretion advised” warning at the beginning.

That message stated that the season was filmed in 2023, and that Amazon, “The Boys” studio Sony Pictures Television and the producers reject “in the strongest terms, real-world violence of any kind,” sentiments echoed by Kripke on Friday.

“We are a superhero TV show. We’re fictional,” Kripke said. “Obviously, it’s a political show with a point of view so there’s gonna be some horrible coincidences. But anything real-world we condemn and are against in the strongest possible terms. We’re just making our superhero show.”

One of the most emotional scenes in “The Boys” Season 4 finale was when Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) spoke for the very first time (outside of a dream sequence) in a moment of desperation when Frenchie (Tomer Capone) was being hauled away from her by Vought. What does this mean for her verbal skills in Season 5?

“I don’t think she’s gonna be a chatterbox,” Kripke said. “I think we have to find a way that she’s still special and interesting and she shouldn’t just talk like everyone. So frankly, we’re figuring it out. We’re figuring out what the rhythm and cadence of her dialogue will be. But she will be talking!”

All the while, Kripke is trying to savor this time where he’s still “in denial” that the show is ending (by his own choice, might we add).

“We have a whole season to write,” Kripke said. “I have a lot of work to do to push it all off. But when we’re up there shooting and when we really wrap for that last time, that’s gonna be a mess.”

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