With The Boys in the midst of its fifth and final season, fans got some bad news about the future of the Vought Cinematic Universe. In April, Prime Video canceled the spinoff Gen V after two seasons, but The Boys creator Eric Kripke tells Polygon in a virtual interview that he’d like to find a way to keep the characters around.
“I think there is more story among the Gen V kids,” he says. “It won’t necessarily be in Gen V, but hopefully we can get some more Vought series going so that we can continue their story.”
Kripke says his next spinoff, the prequel Vought Rising, has already been written, and Gen V’s cancellation won’t change his plans for the series.
“It has a season-wide story that has a satisfying ending, but then it definitely opens a door into a new adventure and a new world, and we would love to keep it going,” Kripke says. “That is up to the powers that be.”
Gen V showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters ended season 2 on a cliffhanger that tied directly into this season of The Boys, with Starlight (Erin Moriarty) recruiting the young heroes of Godolkin University to join her resistance to Homelander (Antony Starr). Some of the characters have since had cameos on the main show, though there are plenty of questions about the characters – especially protagonist Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) – that remain unanswered. While he was working in network TV as showrunner of Supernatural and Revolution, Kripke similarly wrestled with whether or not to end seasons on cliffhangers when he didn’t know if the series would get renewed.
“My feeling is, why would I play it safe and why would I prepare for failure?” he says. “I don’t think this is a business right where you can play it safe.”
After the superhero phase, there will be another one because that’s just how companies work.
Kripke certainly hasn’t played it safe in The Boys, which continues to use over-the-top violence and crude humor to scathingly critique Donald Trump and his administration.
“There’s never been any editorial restrictions,” Kripke says. “I would be stunned if anyone in any real position of power looks at our whale-exploding prehensile-penis show and feels that there’s any legitimate threat. I think it just seems hard to believe. We haven’t gotten any pushback, but we’re also so ridiculous. We’re court jesters with an especially stupid hat. I think maybe because of that, we eke on by.”
The one thing Kripke is afraid of is disappointing fans. This season he introduced a former Vought Studios TV writer called the Worm (Ely Henry) to express those fears. The Worm also talks a lot about being replaced by AI, but Kripke’s not nearly so worried about an algorithm taking his job.
“It was just a joke of just how shitty Vought is,” he says. “I think AI can be a problem, and there already are corners of the industry that are really getting hit by it, but it’s going to be a while before AI can really write something that feels unmistakably human.”
The end of The Boys and Gen V comes at a time when Hollywood executives and audiences are seemingly experiencing superhero fatigue. Former Vought CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) indirectly references the phenomenon in a season 5 monologue about how superheroes might come and go, but capitalism will reign supreme. It’s a sentiment that Kripke agrees with, though he has no idea what will come next.
“If you look back over the history of popular media, there have been phases,” he says. “I would say the Western needed [Mel Brooks’ 1974 parody] Blazing Saddles as a course correction to point out the absurdities of that particular genre like we’re doing in the superhero genre. Then there was that ‘80s over-muscled Stallone, Schwarzenegger thing. After the superhero phase, there will be another one because that’s just how companies work.”
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