For good or ill, nearly everything’s a franchise these days, or it’s trying to be. It wasn’t that long ago The Boys stood on its own as a brutal, often bloody takedown of standard superhero fare and the currrent cultural climate. While that hasn’t changed, the show’s also become the mothership for a larger enterprise with several spinoffs fighting for attention—and for creator Eric Kripke, the worst outcome would be for things to get out of hand.
During a recent Collider interview, Kripke talked about the potential within the Boys universe once the main show wraps with season five. He said the team is analyzing everything in the works right now, and confessed to living “in absolute terror of becoming the thing we’ve been satirizing for five years.” Despite how it may seem, Kripke insisted the team genuinely cares about every show they’ve done (or will do), and that they’re “trying really hard not sell out. […] I worry about that every single day.” In his eyes, The Boys is “punk rock” compared to other mainstream shows, and it can suck when said punk rockers go the sellout route.
So far, there’ve been two spinoffs alongside new seasons of The Boys, with at least two more shows on the horizon after the series’ conclusion. By Kripke’s own admission, growing out The Boys while making sure it still has its dignity is a “tricky balance,” even as they can look at other franchises as guidance. Any extensions of the universe are made to tell stories that can’t be told in the main show, from the collegebound tales of Gen V to whatever retro adventures await in Vought Rising. Whatever else you want to say about them, these shows aren’t being thought of on the fly: he said the team is “very careful and mindful about the choices we’re making and being able to defend why we’re making them.” And if you don’t like a particular spinoff, Kripke’s fine with that, he just hopes you also recognize the franchise’s overall general quality.
How do the writers do that while also making sure each show can be propped up by Prime Video and parent company Amazon? He didn’t say, so we’ll see how that balance is struck when The Boys returns in 2025, with Gen V also landing sometime next year.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.