Predicting the success and lifespan of a television series is a challenging task. For showrunners, this means constantly adapting their strategy to ensure the story is told effectively, whether the series lasts for a couple of seasons or extends to a decade. Sometimes a series is granted the perfect amount of episodes to complete its narrative, while other times it faces abrupt endings or requires narrative extensions to meet studio demands.
Eric Kripke, the showrunner of The Boys, is well-acquainted with these challenges. Despite initially suggesting a five-season arc for the show, his perspective has evolved. In a 2020 Twitter Q&A, Kripke mentioned his rough plan for The Boys spanned “five seasons total” but was cautious about making firm commitments. Reflecting on his experience with Supernatural, he said, “I said five seasons for sure, and then that f***er went 15. So I’m mostly going to keep my mouth shut, but creatively five feels like a good round number.”
With The Boys now renewed for a fifth season before the fourth has even aired, Kripke has reconsidered his earlier stance. “I have learned since then to not try to call the seasons as the person who, and this is without hyperbole, is literally the most wrong in entertainment history about how many seasons their show should go,” Kripke shared with Inverse. “Someone pointed that out to me and I was like, ‘You’re right. That’s ridiculous. I need to keep my mouth shut.’ And so I will.”
Amazon Prime Video supports this flexible approach. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Amazon executive Vernon Sanders suggested that the future of The Boys remains open-ended. “Eric has had a vision for what this all leads to for years now, and we’ve been in an ongoing conversation about what comes next,” Sanders said. “So, it’s probably premature to talk about that beyond saying we believe in Eric, and if Eric is interested in continuing the story, we’ll be the first ones in line to really work with him on what that is.”
Whether The Boys will follow in the footsteps of Supernatural with a lengthy run or conclude after the fifth season remains uncertain. Kripke is cautious not to make the same mistake twice. “No one was more wrong in all of human history about how many seasons their show was going to go than this guy. So I am not going to make that same mistake twice,” he says. “Guinness World Record of who is dumbest about how long their show should go, there would literally be a picture of me.”
