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Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The best job I ever had': ‘From ‘Supernatural' to ‘The Boys,' Eric Kripke talks his biggest hits — and miss (ahem, ‘Tarzan')
Eric Kripke is proof that even the most successful creators in Hollywood still battle impostor syndrome. 'I will let you know when I have that moment,' the Supernatural creator and The Boys showrunner told Gold Derby when asked when he felt he'd finally made it in the cutthroat industry of entertainment. 'It's my honest answer. Every good writer I know is like, 'This is the one that they realize I'm a fraud.' I mean, none of us really know what we're doing.' More from GoldDerby 'The Penguin's' Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti reveal the secrets behind their transformative performances (being huge Bat-fans helped) How some Emmy categories lost and others gained nomination slots Peter Straughan breaks down the power plays and personal tragedy in 'Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light' Even after Supernatural, a show that Kripke conceived and ran for the first five seasons of its 15 (!) seasons, the Toledo, Ohio, native feared he'd never work again. The modest and candid Kripke did finally admit that he's felt a little bit more stability in the wake of The Boys' insanely popular run since it premiered on Prime Video in 2019 (its fourth season bowed this past June, with a fifth and final season expected in 2026). In our latest edition of The Gold Standard, Kripke shares stories from all his various supernatural hits. After developing and writing the WB's ill-fated 2003 one-season wonder Tarzan and writing the 2005 horror movie The Boogeyman, Kripke created Supernatural, which followed the adventures of the monster-hunting brothers Sam () and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). I was hoping to get to five [seasons]. But what I was really hoping for was to correct a lot of the mistakes I made with my show before it, which was Tarzan on the WB. That was just such a flaming sh-tshow. And the vast majority of it was my fault. So I really wanted to build a show that corrected those mistakes. Like, for example, if you're going to make a network TV show, you really need to figure out what your engine is. How are you going to generate story every week, 22 times a year? Tarzan had none of that. Supernatural was basically designed to be a story engine, whereas there's some supernatural mystery every single week, and the guys have to get involved every single week, and it's all like Americana and urban legends. … It was just designed to be an effective network television contraption. And I think it did that well, and I think it's one of the reasons it went as long as it did is it. It's maybe too good of an engine [laughs], it just never, never stopped. And then through the exploration of it, seeing how great Jared and Jensen were and then, Misha [Collins] and all the other amazing characters, it sort of evolved in a very organic way. Because you're just looking at great film and great actors, and you just start saying in the writers room, 'Why aren't we why are we pushing that further?' So all the mythology and all the character stuff, it was always there, but it probably became heavier as the show continued. The [moment] that pops into my mind is when we were shooting the pilot, and it was a scene on a bridge where Sam and Dean are talking about their mom. And it's kind of emotional. And I felt good about who we had cast. They seemed great, but you never know until you know. And watching that scene [on monitors] at video village, that was the minute I knew, and I was like, "Oh, shit. These guys are really good, and you really believe them as brothers." And I turned to Peter Johnson, who is one of the executive producers, and we both gave each other the exact same look at the exact same time, like, "Oh, I think we might have something here." I really remember that very vividly. Though Kripke hardly felt bulletproof after the success of Supernatural, he found some validation when he was able to team up with J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau for Revolution. The post-apocalyptic series followed the aftermath of a worldwide electrical shutdown and ran on NBC for two season before it was canceled. The idea [came from] hooking up with [Abrams' production company] Bad Robot just out of a general meeting. They had a short story about all the world's power coming off. Meanwhile, I wanted to do a story [that was] dystopian, post-apocalyptic, like deep into civilization ending. I had been reading The Stand at the time. That was what was jazzing me. And so it was a little chocolate and peanut butter because, I'm like, 'Well, why don't we combine both ideas?' Which we did. And then we just started making it. And then we wrote the pilot and got the green light from NBC and Jon came into the office and was like, 'Hey, I would like to [direct] this pilot.' And I'm like, 'What are Jon Favreau and J.J. Abrams doing sitting in front of me in a room?' Like, that would be great. So then it all kind of came together. And that was my memory of that show outside of losing all the sleep in the world because it was such a hard show. The best parts of that show were sitting in a writer's room with J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau and watching them bounce ideas off each other. That was just a really fun front row seat. Any time a show gets canceled, you shed a tear just because you put so much effort into it. I would say looking back, I feel like my primary emotion was relief. It was such a hard show, and I forgot every lesson I learned with Supernatural. It was completely serialized. There was no engine. There was no clean path. But it was still a network show. Like, had that show been an eight-episode streaming show with a bigger budget? It would have been called The Last of Us [laughs]. It would have been good! Like, people ask me there, "What do you think of The Last of Us? I'm like, 'Oh, it's like if Revolution was good." But trying to do 20 episodes of Revolution was just so, so hard and took two years out of my life. So as much as I love those actors and missed that show, I didn't miss the feeling that I was slowly dying every day. As someone who was making a career out of mining supernatural stories, time travel almost felt like a rite of passage for Kripke. The NBC series starred Abigail Breslin, Matt Lanter, and Malcolm Barrett as a trio of disparate professionals attempting to stop a nefarious organization from altering the course of history through time travel. Like Revolution, however, it only lasted two seasons. I love genre, but I also am really proud of the fact that I really haven't gone to the same genre twice. And I've always thought that time travel was a really great concept for a series. And obviously we didn't invent it. I mean, Quantum Leap probably did it the best, but there was Time Tunnel and there were a bunch of them. … Again, [it's] back to an engine, really. You understand that every week you go to a different historical period and there's some adventure interacting with famous, or not so famous, historical figures. And it gives you a structure when you're in the writers' room. I was calling it 'Bourne Identity through time.' But I didn't want to do it alone because I think I was still shellshocked from Revolution. So I brought the idea — I didn't have much more than that — but I brought the idea to Shawn Ryan, and we really got along, and we started kicking it around together and developing it. And then it became Timeless. I am proud of that one. One it was a genuinely great experience. I'm still close with Shawn and going through that battle with Shawn was really nice. I mean, we ended up getting canceled, but that show did find itself when it started telling stories in history about women or disenfranchised minorities or these amazing stories in history that were true but most people didn't know about, once we got off stuff like the Lincoln assassination and we got into [other factual events]. With pride, I will say that we were the first ones to talk about [legendary slave-turned-lawman] Bass Reeves and Colman Domingo was our Bass Reeves. And the fact that we were able to find and tell those stories, and were a lot of times the first time anyone was telling them, is something that I'm proud of. I think it was a very inclusive show, and it was during the first Trump presidency. And so this notion that history is for everyone was, as I saw it, a really important message. Versus all his other major television shows, The Boys represented a shift for Kripke in multiple ways. One, it was based on existing IP, the adult comic book series created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. And two, the R-rated superhero ensemble costarring Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, and Erin Moriarty is far darker and more violent than any of Kripke's previous network television work. The series has received eight Emmy nominations to date, including Best Drama Series in 2021, and won for its stunt work in 2023. I was passionate about Garth Ennis comics and was a huge fan of The Boys. I took a meeting with a producer named Ori Marmar, who worked for Neil Moritz, basically just to say to him, "I can't believe you gave Preacher to somebody else." Because Preacher was my all-time favorite comic. And he's like, "Well, we have The Boys." I'm like, "Oh, I'll just take that then." But no, I think anyone who really knows me and even works with me in the writers' room, they know that my humor skews really dark and I have a pretty filthy mouth. And I love profane humor … and so suddenly I was able to make this show that is by far the most like my personality than anything I've been able to do up to this point. So the fact that it hit as big as it did was very gratifying because [with] most everything else I had to pretend to be more innocent than I was. Like, I love Sam Raimi and super gory horror and really profane comedy and emotion and satire, I'm a huge satire nut, and being able mix all that up into one stew was the best. It's the best job I've ever had. We never really worried about ['superhero fatigue']. Just the opposite, actually. We saw that as an opportunity. I mean, when we were pitching the show, we were pitching it almost 10 years ago. I think Deadpool had just come out, and our whole pitch was 'There's a tidal wave that's about to crash, and someone's going to do this for TV, and it might as well be us.' The balloon is gonna be too big and someone has to take the piss out of it because it's a piss balloon. … I'm a comic book nerd, and comics went through the same evolution. There were straight superhero comics, and then guys like Garth Ennis came along and they started subverting the form. And that was overdue in the feature space and television space. So we kind of knew it was coming, and we wanted to be at the head of it. So we never felt like, we've got the counterprogramming that people are going to want. And then as the show continued, I think we stayed fresh by always making sure that it was never about the superheroes. The superheroes are the slick packaging on the outside of the cereal box. But what it's really about is late stage capitalism and politics. And how do you hold on to hope, and the corrosive aspects of revenge. So the superhero thing is just a metaphor to get to a lot of deeper issues that are really going on in the world, both politically and emotionally. I think that's what early Marvel did well. And once your superhero stuff is just about superheros, yeah it's probably pretty boring. But when your superhero stuff is about anything but, I think people see that and appreciate it. We realized it very early, but I don't think we started with just the metaphor of, "It'll be fun to use superheroes to satirize celebrities." That was the idea. But once you dig a little deeper you say, "Well, these aren't just celebrities, these are authoritarians and fascists." And once you realize these are authoritarians who present as celebrities, you realize we're telling a metaphor that is more like the present moment we're living in than almost anybody else right now. … And so we felt an obligation to run with that ball as far as we could. So, very quickly there, I gave the directive in the room that we're all going to be news junkies. We're all going to know every single thing about every single political issue. And then we're going to make a show that's a satire of that. And I take a lot of pride in for as bananas as this show is, we're also one of, if not the most, current show on television. Which, you know, doesn't say great things about the world or reality, but we're able to talk about issues that a lot of shows can't talk about, and even less now that there's this cooling effect of people are scared about being political. But someone's got to be the kid in the back of the classroom throwing spitballs and, and we're proud that that's us, right up until the moment they vanish me. Then I'll be like, "I didn't mean it." Like I won't be brave about. While The Boys has made an art form of subverting the superhero genre, it's also done what every other successful crimefighter inevitably does as well: franchise. In 2022 came the animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical and the Audible podcast The Boys: Deeper and Deeper. The next-gen streaming series spin-off Gen V launched in 2023, and two more shows are on the way, The Boys: Mexico and Vought Rising. I think it's been really fun and challenging to find that sweet spot where each show has its own reason for existing. And so it's not just like a cash grab sell out, but it's like each one is a story. A you're like, "Oh, that's an interesting story. I would like to hear that story. And I'm interested in those characters." And so how each one becomes its own animal with its own creative vibe and rhythm and look, while still being a part of this sort of larger tone that we're creating. That's a really fun and hard challenge. But I really enjoy that. I'm interested in not just like, "Well, how do they all become one long story you have to f--king watch? And how do I just create more homework for the audience?" It's more like, how do you make each one exist on its own and as great as you possibly can? And I hope the audience somehow senses that in between the lines, that we're not just doing it just because we like money. We're doing it because we actually think those are interesting stories to tell. Like, we have this prequel [Vought Rising] coming up. And it's superheroes in the 1950s, but it's like the grittiest, most real version of the '50s. I've just never seen that before. I've seen it in like six or seven minutes of Watchmen, but that's it. And so to do a whole world that lives there, I'm just really intrigued to see what that looks like. And I would watch that, whether I knew about The Boys or not. Best of GoldDerby Tina Fey on 'The Four Seasons': 'It was a challenge to be restrained about where we put jokes' 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero Jonathan Pryce on the 'great responsibility' of playing a character with dementia in 'Slow Horses' Click here to read the full article.
Express Tribune
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Antony Starr reacts to fans glorifying Homelander in The Boys, calls it 'surreal'
Antony Starr, who portrays the supervillain Homelander in The Boys, recently expressed surprise at how some fans glorify the character, calling the reaction 'surreal.' Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Starr revealed he and the cast had to push back on social media after noticing that fans were idolizing the ultra-violent and authoritarian supe. 'We had a bunch of guys that we all kind of knocked down a little bit on social media to say, 'This guy is not the hero of any story.' They were really glorifying him — they loved him, which was surreal,' he said. Starr admitted he didn't expect fans to feel conflicted about the character, adding, 'What I didn't expect was that people would be so conflicted around it and, you know, finding themselves feeling empathy for this monster.' His remarks echo those of The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke, who addressed similar reactions ahead of Season 4. Kripke responded to claims the show had become 'woke' and fans viewing Homelander as a hero. 'Anyone who wants to call the show 'woke' or whatever, that's OK. Go watch something else,' Kripke said. 'The show's many things. Subtle isn't one of them. So if that's the message you're getting from it, I just throw up my hands.' Kripke also confirmed that Homelander was designed as a metaphor for authoritarian figures, notably former U.S. President Donald Trump. 'Suddenly, we were telling a story about the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism and how social media and entertainment are used to sell fascism.' The Boys is currently filming its fifth and final season, which will wrap up the Prime Video hit series.
Newsweek
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Gen V Season 2 – Everything We Know, Cast List, Release Date, Trailer Update
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Fans have been left hanging in the balance for almost two months, awaiting news from Gen V season two. The series' executive producer, Eric Kripke, took to X (formerly known as Twitter) at the end of March to inform everyone that the episodes were, in fact, edited; they were now working on adding music, sound, and VFX. Okay #GenV update! Eps are done editing, doing music, sound & VFX now. Finishing up the first trailer. Trailer drop & date announcement coming soon. (I think this season is better than S1 & will be worth the wait) @genv @TheBoysTV @PointGrey @PrimeVideo — Eric Kripke (@therealKripke) March 29, 2025 Kripke told everyone that the "Trailer drop & date announcement [are] coming soon", but since then, there have been no further updates. The official Gen V social media accounts have also been quiet, leaving everyone wondering: When will we know the Gen V season two release date? Antony Starr as Homelander in Gen V Season 1 Antony Starr as Homelander in Gen V Season 1 Amazon Studios There's not much out there currently, but we've pulled everything we know so far about Gen V season two, including the Gen V season two cast list, Gen V season two release date information, and the Gen V season two first look. Who Will Star in Gen V Season 2? Cast members listed to appear in season two of Gen V are: Jaz Sinclair (Marie Moreau) Lizze Broadway (Emma Meyer/Little Cricket) Maddie Phillips (Cate Dunlap) Derek Luh (Jordan Li) London Thor (Jordan Li) Asa Germann (Sam Riordan) Hamish Linklater (Cipher) Stephen Kalyn Tait Fletcher Keeya King Georgie Murphy Dante Jemmott (Daniel) Julia Knope Stacey McGunnigle (as per IMDb) Gen V Season 2 Release Date There is currently no confirmed release date for Gen V season two. Reports suggest we will see season two return to Prime Video in late 2025. What Will Happen in Gen V Season 2? We may not have plot details for Gen V season two yet, but we do have Eric Kripke's word, who says, "I think this season is better than [season one] & will be worth the wait". Older information we have comes from the season two announcement, where Kripke and series showrunner, Michele Fazekas, said, "These are characters and stories we've grown to love, and we are thrilled to know people feel the same!The writers are already working on the new season—sophomore year is gonna be wild, with all the twists, heart, satire, and exploding genitalia you've come to expect from the show." (Variety) So, while that doesn't exactly tell us what's going to happen in Gen V season two, it does offer a taste. Gen V Season 2 Trailer The trailer for Gen V season two is "coming soon", as per executive producer Eric Kripke. Kripke revealed on X (formerly known as Twitter) at the end of March that both the trailer and release announcement were on the way following season two wrapping. Gen V Season 2 First Look We don't yet have our first official stills from Gen V season two, but the show's social media accounts have given a few behind-the-scenes sneak peeks of what's to come, including a shot of the cast on set. That's a wrap on sophomore year 🫡 — GEN V (@genv) November 1, 2024
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'The Boys' Creator Eric Kripke Warns That Trump's Tariff Plan Could Hurt, Not Help, Hollywood
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump stunned the entertainment industry by proposing a 100 percent tariff on foreign-made films — and potentially television shows — as part of a plan to 'save' what he called a 'dying' Hollywood. So far, the White House says 'no final decisions' have been made on whether it will take effect, but inside the industry, pushback is already mounting. In a wide-ranging conversation with Katie Couric Media, The Boys creator Eric Kripke challenged the idea, arguing that while Los Angeles may no longer be the dominant production hub, slapping steep levies on international shoots won't bring business back to the U.S. — and may only deepen the industry's challenges. 'What happens if your visual effects company is international? Do you have to pay double for that even if you're making an American picture?' he posited. Kripke knows what he's talking about. The writer and producer behind long-running series like Supernatural and films like Boogeyman has spent his career navigating the economics of global production — filming in Vancouver, Toronto, and Los Angeles, chasing tax incentives and stretching tight budgets. Few creators have had a closer view of how — and why — the industry has moved away from its traditional home base. Still, many in Hollywood remain hesitant to speak publicly. Some producers declined to comment on the record, and a recent letter to the president from Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone — two of his closest Hollywood allies — urging tax relief for the film and TV industry made no mention of the issue. We spoke with Kripke about why tariffs aren't the answer, what it would actually take to bring production back to Southern California, and how economic policy could shape the future of storytelling. Eric Kripke: The proposed 100 percent tariff on shooting internationally is a real and serious problem. In my entire career, I've only shot in Los Angeles twice — it's a lot of jobs lost in what is the center of the industry. However, tariffs are not the way to solve that problem. It's confusing, a little scattershot, and I think almost impossible to implement because movies like Mission: Impossible or James Bond have to be shot around the world. Even though you're shooting some of it in the United States, you're also circling the globe. What happens if your visual effects company is international? Do you have to pay double for that even if you're making an American picture? [Filmmaking] isn't the same as importing products, where at the port, you say, 'Well, if it's coming from this place, we add this tax.' I don't know how you would define what gets taxed and how those taxes would be implemented. It also infringes on free speech to a certain extent. I just don't understand the legality of it. We shoot The Boys in Toronto for two reasons: The relative strength of the American dollar and the tax incentives and rebates that they give. So in effect, we're getting an additional like 19 cents on the dollar, 20 cents on the dollar of every single dollar spent, which is millions and millions of dollars more than we would have had were we to shoot in Los Angeles. In terms of being able to stretch the dollar, that equates to a whole other action scene or a big actor that I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. These kinds of things really affect the quality of the show. But filming in Canada used to be a mess. It wasn't until they brought X-Files up there that it really modernized the industry in that city. The tragic thing is Los Angeles already has all the infrastructure that has taken these other towns decades to build, and now it has kind of just been sitting on its butt with amazing crew and sound stages just watching these other towns evolve into amazing production centers. But one thing that's not attractive about Canada is the weather — it's horrible. It would 100 percent [make us more competitive.] Southern California has to be competitive in its tax incentives. They're so far behind not just Canada but also Atlanta and other production hubs like New York. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is actually finally paying attention to it. A bill is starting to circulate about drastically increasing the tax rebate. That's how to get production home — you get them home with a carrot, not a stick. It's not just California: Other states need to really examine their tax incentives and find ways to make it attractive to film there. What they're losing in tax revenue, they're gaining in salaries and thousands of jobs. They're also stabilizing the middle class who work on these productions, including carpenters, craftsmen, cameramen, and caterers. Studios are primarily driven by how they can save money, which I understand. They're a business, and their job is to try to save money. As much as it irritates me personally on a day-to-day basis, I get it. So if they can save as much money as they would save if they were to shoot in Toronto or Vancouver, for sure, they would choose Los Angeles. It would be simpler logistically: It'd be easier for them to get to set and save them money on plane tickets. If they want to yell at a director, it's just a drive. There's quite a lot of production happening in the United States — it's just not happening in Southern California. You can't book a sound stage in Atlanta because it's so busy. It's the same case with New York State and New Mexico. The worse the economy gets, the harder it is to import things and mount productions. Productions are very much like giant construction projects — you're just building things with equipment from all over. This 100 percent tariff on movies produced outside the U.S. could have a really chilling effect on independent film. Worst-case scenario: Studios will become even more focused on Marvel or comic books, which is not great for variety. But they [make so much money], they'll survive whatever happens. What might not survive is the man or the woman with a really fresh vision and only half a million dollars or a million dollars to make their movie. Those people would normally have to make it in Canada, London, or Ireland just to get it on its feet. It couldn't be worse timing for the tariffs because a lot of the [people being taxed] are very small filmmakers making very low-budget stuff. And if everyone's scared to buy a movie that was shot overseas, there will be people whose dreams will get dashed over this. We live in a scary time, and there are bigger problems to tackle [than the film industry]. But [taxing it] is not helping it. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The post 'The Boys' Creator Eric Kripke Warns That Trump's Tariff Plan Could Hurt, Not Help, Hollywood appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
Tom's Guide
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
'The Boys' reveals 'Supernatural' new details about season 5 — here's what's coming
(Image credit: Courtesy Amazon Studios) "The Boys" season 5 is still probably about a year away. But we now know at least one scene to expect from the show's final season. Fans of the show "Supernatural" know that season 5 of "The Boys" has a greater purpose than just ending the saga of Butcher vs. Homelander. It is also a long-awaited on-screen reunion for the former show's three big stars: Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins. A post shared by THE BOYS (@theboystv) A photo posted by on In an interview with TV Insider, "The Boys" show creator Eric Kripke revealed that yes, not only will all three be in the show this season — which had already been confirmed in an Instagram post (see above) — but that the three are guaranteed to share the screen together. At least once. You may like 'It's a blast. We already shot it," revealed Kripke. 'I will confirm that Jared, Jensen, and Misha are all in the same frame together, and in the same storyline, and interacting with each other.' For "Supernatural" fans, that has to be a huge relief. Of course, it was almost a certainty that Kripke, who created the long-running CW show starring Ackles, Padalecki and Collins, would ensure the reunion was done right. (Image credit: Prime Video) 'Having the five of us back together on set, filming, was just so fun and like a high school reunion," added former "Supernatural" director Phil Sgriccia, who will be directing the season 5 premiere: "Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite." "You immediately fall into all your old patterns.' Kripke also shared Sgriccia's warm feelings about the backdoor "Supernatural" reunion. 'It was really heartwarming and nice to like immediately be brought back to these guys that I love and haven't had them all together, at least in a professional capacity, in years and years," he chimed in. "So it was really, really meaningful.' Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. As for what will happen when the trio is on screen together? We know Ackles is reprising his role as Soldier Boy from previous seasons, but Padalecki and Collins's roles are still under wraps. Make sure to follow our "The Boys" season 5 coverage to stay on top of all the latest updates.
