For those of you out there suffering from superhero fatigue, Amazon might just have the show for you, as it drops the first teaser trailer for ‘The Boys‘ from Eric Kripke, Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen.
Based on the Garth Ennis comic book, ‘The Boys’ looks at what happens when superheroes – who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians and as revered as Gods – abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. It’s the powerless against the super powerful as The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about ‘The Seven,’ and Vought, the multi-billion dollar conglomerate that manages these superheroes.
The trailer is a mock publicity video from Vought promoting ‘The Seven’, the “superhero” team led by Antony Starr (‘Banshee’) as Homelander, with Nathan Mitchell (‘iZombie’) as Black Noir, Dominique McElligott (‘House of Cards’) as Queen Maeve, Erin Moriarty (‘Jessica Jones’) as Starlight, and Chace Crawford (‘Gossip Girl’) as The Deep.
You then get a quick glimpse of ‘The Boys’ at the end, as they give their “thoughts” on the ad. These are the group who are formed to control and, if necessary, take out those superpowered beings who overstep the mark. They consist of Billy Butcher (Karl Urban – ‘Star Trek’, ‘Dredd’), The Frenchman – aka Frenchie (Tomer Capon – ‘Hostages’, ‘Fauda’), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso – ‘The Mysteries of Laura’, ‘Deception’), The Female (Karen Fukuhara – ‘Suicide Squad’) and new recruit Wee Hughie (Jack Quaid – ‘The Hunger Games’, Vinyl’).
One surprise announcement from NYCC came when Simon Pegg (‘Star Trek’, ‘Shaun of the Dead’) joined the cast on stage at their panel. Pegg has a long connection with ‘The Boys’, as Ennis used his likeness for the comic book version of Wee Hughie, and he wrote the forward to the graphic novel release of the book. Pegg was a little too old to play the character at this point, but cleverly, he will be starring as Hughie’s father in the series. “I’ve never been more insecure in my life that I wasn’t Simon Pegg,” joked Quaid, who is playingHughie. “He is like my literal hero.”
This does mean a reunion of sorts for Pegg, who joins his fellow ‘Star Trek’ castmate, Karl Urban. “we have a competition between us who can be in the most franchises,” joked Urban. “We’re a couple of franchise whores and we’re very proud of it,” added Pegg.
‘The Boys‘ was picked up by Amazon for a straight-to-series order. ‘Timeless’ & ‘Supernatural’ creator Eric Kripke is writing the show with Goldberg & Rogen (‘Preacher’) directing. All three exec produce with Kripke serving as showrunner. The series will premiere on Amazon Prime in 2019.
