It’s almost impossible to predict if and when a television series will succeed. For a showrunner, that means constantly shifting and adjusting your strategy for telling a complete story in the time you have, be that two seasons, five seasons, or 10. Sometimes a show gets the exact number of episodes it needs to tell its story, sometimes it’s cut short, and sometimes the conclusion needs to be stalled to fill up all the episodes a studio has ordered.
A showrunner may have an idea for an overall narrative, but circumstances can get in the way. No one knows that better than The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke, and four years after claiming to have a master plan, he’s come to know better.
Back in 2020, Kripke said in a Twitter Q&A that his rough idea for The Boys included “five seasons total” but was hesitant to make any firm predictions. “My last show, Supernatural, I said five seasons for sure, and then that f***er went 15,” he said. “So I’m mostly going to keep my mouth shut, but creatively five feels like a good round number.”
Now The Boys has been renewed for a fifth season before the fourth even premieres. With that in mind, Kripke has amended his attitude on its future. “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 of how many seasons their show should go,” he tells 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 has no problems with this attitude. In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Amazon executive Vernon Sanders hinted that The Boys wouldn’t end any time soon. “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.”
Could The Boys reach Supernatural levels, with 15 seasons of graphic superhero adventures for fans to consume? Or will Season 5 wrap up its story before it gets out of control? Kripke won’t repeat bad habits and try to speculate.
“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.”
