The Boys is based on a graphic comic book series of the same name, written by Garth Ennis in 2006. It is set in a world where a group of superheroes known as The Seven reign supreme, but a non-superpowered group, The Boys, attempt to expose the “heroes” as frauds.
In a recent episode of Hot Ones, Rogen told the story of how The Boys was taken away from him during the development stages in the late 2000s.
“Something like The Boys was obvious to us,” Rogen told host Sean Evans. “It’s a funny journey with the comic because me and Evan [Goldberg], we’re big fans of Garth Ennis, he wrote the comic and he wrote Preacher as well.
“We bought the first issue [of The Boys] when it came out and we were like, ‘Oh my god, this would make a great movie. Regular people fighting superheroes.’” Rogen continued, “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.”
Don’t Look Up and Anchorman writer Adam MacKay signed on to direct a movie version of The Boys back in August 2010, but the project never got off the ground. Eventually in 2012, Sony and Columbia Pictures dropped its option, leading to Paramount Pictures picking it up, but once again nothing ever came of it.
Looking back on the development hell that The Boys was stuck in, Rogen said: “They [Sony] 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.”
Now the Primetime Emmy Award-nominated show The Boys is approaching its third season, with two spinoffs on the horizon as well.
Explaining why The Boys has resonated so much with audiences, Rogen explained: “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***. So as long as they’re not doing that, it leaves a great opportunity for us to do that.”
