THE BOYS Was Originally Being Developed as a Film Trilogy By Director Adam McKay

Before Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg, and Eric Kripke developed a series adaptation of The Boys comic book series for Amazon Prime Video, a film trilogy was being developed by director Adam McKay.

According to a recent report from Rolling Stone, the trilogy was being developed in 2008 after Rogen and Goldberg picked up the first issue of the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson in 2006, and brought it to Sony Pictures.

Rogan talked about that, saying: "We were like, 'Holy shit, this is f*cking crazy,’ and that week we went to Sony and we’re like, 'You guys should make this.'"

Goldberg immediately added: "And they were like, 'We should...with someone else.'"

So, the studio took it to McKay to develop, and the first installment of the film got as far as a finished screenplay and animatics. Obviously, that didn’t work out.

While Sony had the rights to The Boys, the project went through several different iterations before the project found its way back to Rogen, Goldberg, and Kripke. 

Robertson shared his thoughts on the journey this project took before it finally got its series adaptation, saying: "I wouldn’t change how it worked out because the show is amazing.

“But he was doing really cool stuff. It just came down to it being 2008, not 2018. I just don’t think they were ready for it yet."

Everything worked out for the better in the end because there’s no way that back in 2008 McKay would’ve gotten away with a lot of stuff that the series is doing. But, I can’t help but be curious to know how McKay’s vision for the trilogy would’ve turned out.

We’ll never know, but fans are sure enjoying the series, and that’s all that matters.