Of all the comic book adaptations coming to live-action over the next year or so, AMC’s adaptation of Garth Ennis‘ classic Vertigo series Preacher has the biggest question mark surrounding it. Can a television network, even one on cable, do justice to to writer Garth Ennis’ and artist Steve Dillon’s over-the-top and sometimes very NC-17 rated opus? Fanboy producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg think they’re just the guys to pull it off. Now that the pilot to Preacher has been shot and the series has a first season order, they’re turning their attention to bringing another wild and raunchy Garth Ennis property to TV: The Boys.
The Boys centers around a set of characters that are a CIA black ops group with the job of watching and sometimes eliminating superheroes once they become threats to the general population. In the universe of The Boys, superheroes are pretty much all vapid, violent jerks who don’t care about placing civilians in harm’s way. Generally, they are more concerned with their own celebrity status than actually saving the day. The series was originally published by DC/Wildstorm, but after six issues they returned the license to creators Ennis and Darick Robertson because of the sexuality, violence, and the book’s strong anti-superhero attitude. Dynamite Entertainment would complete the 72-issue run of The Boys in 2012.
Now, according to a report from Birth.Movies.Death, Rogen and Goldberg are teaming up with Supernatural creator Eric Kripke to try and bring The Boys to cable television. Just like with Preacher, the story of The Boys runs 70-plus issues and has a beginning, middle, and end, which makes a multi-season adaptation a bit easier to pull off.
What won’t be easy to pull off will be all the explicit content. Perhaps this means they’re going for premium cable like HBO and Showtime versus basic cable. Right now this is all just a rumor of course, but if Preacher becomes a runaway hit, expect The Boys to follow soon after. Now if only someone would get it in their heads to adapt Y: The Last Man as a cable series. Now that would be cool.
What do you think of The Boys potentially coming to television? Sound off in the comments below!
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IMAGE: Dynamite Entertainment
