Posted in: Amazon Studios, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: amazon, butcher, Emmys, eric kripke, Homelander, preview, season 3, the boys

The Boys Season 3 Update: Eric Kripke Talks Theme; Offers S03E01 Tease

The Boys series creator & executive producer Eric Kripke has been pulling double duty lately. As production continues on the third season of the hit Amazon Prime Video series (and the cast actually able to be back together again in less than six feet proximity), Kripke has also been hitting the press circuit to make sure the comic book adaptation gets remembered by Emmys voters as it closer to nomination announcement time. To that end, Kripke spoke with Deadline Hollywood to talk all things The Boys– and in the following highlights, he offers a production update (as of the time of the interview) as well as what his goals are for the third season and a teaser about the series opener.

On Where Season 3 Production Stands: "We're in the middle of shooting. We're just over the halfway point by a couple of weeks. So, full-on production. It's all happening. I went through the quarantine and was on set for about three-and-a-half weeks, just in the beginning, to get everybody off and running. But since then I've been here [in L.A.]."

Expect America & Being An American to Be Key Season Themes: "We've been certainly a political and satirical show. We were really interested in exploring both the recent history of Vought, the company in the show, but also through that the recent history of the United States… We got really interested in the myths we tell ourselves, to feel that we're righteous, really exploring America itself as a myth.

A big element of the comics actually are flashbacks to World War II and Vietnam. I always really loved it because you got to see how the superhero phenomenon didn't just affect the present, but how it affected parts of the past as well. And so we have this character, Soldier Boy, played by Jensen Ackles, and he's been around since World War II and was the first Vought superhero. Through him and through his story, we're able to explore a lot of the history of the country, really.

I'd say in previous seasons the boogeyman for you to be scared of used to be, 'The terrorists are coming to get you.' And now it's sort of metastasized into, I think, a much more ominous, 'Your neighbor is coming to get you.' And that's scary to me, how politics are turning us on each other. So, we want to explore what it means to be in America, really."

Viewers Should Expect "Something Nobody Has Ever Seen Before" in S03E01: "Without giving away any spoilers, I was just in editing yesterday, and we're doing something here in the season 3 premiere that is not only I think the craziest thing we've ever done, it's got to be up there with the craziest thing anyone's ever done. Maybe it won't work. Who knows? But I'm just so high on this gag that we're pulling off. And it's certainly something nobody has ever seen before, probably for good reason. So all that's really exciting."

Kripke and Craig Rosenberg (Director, S03E01 "Payback") are also working on a spinoff series (a series order is expected soon) based on a Vought-sponsored college for the best of the best supes-wise. Though still in development with casting underway (see below), Kripke had some details to offer during an interview with THR. First, Kripke wants fans to know that the series isn't the result of Amazon looking to milk the franchise for all it's worth: this was the team's idea. "First, it didn't come from Amazon telling us, 'Hey, you're a hit, you must do a lot more of the same.' It came from me, [The Boys EPs] Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Craig Rosenberg just talking. We stumbled onto this corner of the universe that we really loved and we took it to them," Kripke explained.

As for the concept of The Boys spinoff (which strikes us as a cross between medical school students finding out where their residencies and college athletes getting drafted to pro teams), Kripke was able to elaborate on the different "supes perspective" viewers will have. 'It's a Vought-owned college where young kids with powers are trained as to how to be proper superheroes, all leading to an NBA-style draft at the end of the year. It's sort of like a college sports show meets Fame, because they also have to go to acting classes and marketing classes. It's going to be a very character-driven, hopefully incredibly realistic, college show," he explained.

Lizzie Broadway (The Rookie, Bones) and Jaz Sinclair (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Shane Paul McGhie (Deputy, Greenleaf), Aimee Carrero (Elena of Avalor, Young & Hungry), and Maddie Phillips (Teenage Bounty Hunters), and Reina Hardesty (Brockmire) have been cast as young Supes attending America's only college exclusively for those with special powers (run by Vought International, of course). The series will explore the lives of hormonal, competitive Supes as they put their physical, sexual, and moral boundaries to the test- competing for the best contracts in the best cities.

Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television are set to produce, in association with Point Grey Pictures, Kripke Enterprises, Original Film, and NightSky Productions. Rosenberg will pen the pilot and serve as executive producer and showrunner on The Boys spinoff as part of his overall deal with Sony Pictures TV. The Boys developer/executive producer Kripke and fellow EPs, Point Grey Pictures' Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver; Original Film's Neal H. Moritz and Pavun Shetty; and Ken F. Levin and Jason Netter also executive produce.

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