Amazon Prime Video said that global viewership for its superheroes gone bad series The Boys grew by 20% from Season 3. 

Through July 21, the first weekend after Prime Video dropped the Season 4 finale, The Boys has drawn 44 million viewers.

That makes it the fourth-most-watched TV series on the service, and the second-most-0viewed returning series for Prime Video, following only Season 2 of Reacher. 

The Boys has now increased its viewership in each of its four seasons. The show has also spawned a spinoff, Gen V.

Amazon said that 60% of The Boys Season 4 audience was based outside of the U.S. International viewing was strongest in the U.K., Brazil, India, Germany, Canada, France, Mexico, Spain and Italy.

Season 5 will be the last one for The Boys. Amazon has not yet set a release date. 

Karl Urban, Anthony Starr and Jack Quaid star in the series.

The Boys is based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, who are executive producers, along with showrunner Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and a bevy of others. 

The cast of Prime Video series The Boys, including Antony Starr, Chase Crawford, Colby Minifie, Susan Heyward and Valorie Curry, will be at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan Tuesday, June 18, to talk about the show. Season four of the superhero satire series starts June 13. 

An episode from the new season will screen. 

As the 92nd Street Y puts it, the show “has gained a cult following for its irreverent take on 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.”

Josh Horowitz, podcaster and MTV personality, will moderate the session. 

The Boys is based on the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, who are executive producers, along with showrunner Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and a bevy of others. 

Gen V, a spinoff of superhero series The Boys, debuts on Amazon Prime Video Friday, September 29. The show looks at life at Godolkin University, America’s only college for young-adult superheroes. Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are behind Gen V. 

Gen V explores the training of the first generation of superheroes to know about Compound V and to know that their powers were injected into them, not God-given. “These young, competitive heroes put their physical and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the school’s highly coveted top ranking,” according to Prime. “They quickly come to learn that ambition comes with sacrifice, and the difference between right and wrong is not as clear as they once believed. When the university’s dark secrets come to light, the students must come to grips with what type of heroes they are going to become.”

Three episodes are out September 29, followed by weekly Friday releases, with the season finale dropping November 3. 

The cast includes Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Shelley Conn, Maddie Phillips, London Thor, Derek Luh and Asa Germann. Clancy Brown and Jason Ritter are guest stars, while Jessie T. Usher, Claudia Doumit, Colby Minifie and P.J. Byrne reprise their roles from The Boys.

Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters are showrunners and executive producers on the spinoff. Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Neal H. Moritz, Ori Marmur, Pavun Shetty, Ken Levin, Jason Netter, Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Craig Rosenberg, Nelson Cragg, Zak Schwartz, Erica Rosbe and Michaela Starr executive produce as well. 

The Boys, which premiered in 2019, follows a team of vigilantes that combats superheroes who abuse their supernatural abilities. Based on the comic book by Ennis and Robertson, there are three seasons.

Gen V is produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios, in association with Kripke Enterprises, Point Grey Pictures and Original Film. 

Two returning drama series will help ring in a new week of TV premieres heading into the summer months.  

Prime Video will premiere the third season of the Emmy-nominated, superhero-themed series The Boys on June 3. The series stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid and Anthony Starr.  

Also returning on June 3 for its sophomore campaign is Starz's P-Valley. The 10-episode series chronicles the action surrounding a fictional, Mississippi-based strip club. 

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for multiple shows debuting the week of May 31 to June 5 on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

May 31 – Pistol (drama) – Hulu

June 1 – The Real Housewives of Dubai (reality series) -- Bravo

June 2 – For The Love of Jason (returning series) – ALLBLK

June 2 – The Orville: New Horizons (returning series) – Hulu

June 2 – This Is Going to Hurt (drama) – AMC Plus

June 3 – The Villains of Valley View (comedy) -- Disney Channel

June 3 – Physical (returning series) – Apple TV Plus

June 3 – Ultra Violet and Black Scorpion (comedy) – Disney Channel

Emmy-nominated drama series The Boys will return to Prime Video for its third season June 3, the streaming service announced Friday. 

The Boys follows the exploits of popular superheroes who abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good, according to the streaming service. 

Karl Urban, Anthony Starr and Jack Quaid star in the series, which was nominated for an 2021 Emmy Award for outstanding drama series.

Amazon Studios said it ordered a spinoff series from The Boys.

The untitled new series will also be produced by Sony Pictures Television and will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories.

The Boys recently wrapped production on season 3. A premiere date has not been announced.

The spinoff will be set at America’s only college for young-adult superheroes. The school will be run by Vought International, the evil corporation central to The Boys' story. Amazon described the series as “part college show, part Hunger Games—with all the heart, satire, and raunch of The Boys.”

Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway, Shane Paul McGhie, Aimee Carrero, Reina Hardesty, and Maddie Phillips have been cast as some of the show’s young superheroes.

Also Read: The Amazon Prime Video ‘Purge’: Why the Massive SVOD Library Appears to Have Fewer Titles to Binge on These Days

The series will be produced by Sony Pictures Television Studios and Amazon Studios, in association with Kripke Enterprises, Point Grey Pictures, and Original Film. 

Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters will serve as showrunners and executive producers. Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Neal H. Moritz, Ori Marmur, Pavun Shetty, Ken Levin, Jason Netter, Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, and Michaela Starr will serve as executive producers.

“Much like Mork & Mindy spun-off from Happy Days—which is an insane and true fact—our spinoff will exist in the Vought Cinematic Universe, yet have a tone and style all its own. It’s our take on a college show, with an ensemble of fascinating, complicated, and sometimes deadly Young Supes,” said The Boys’ showrunner and executive producer Eric Kripke. “Michele and Tara are stone-cold geniuses, we’re thrilled to have them steer this ship, and grateful to Sony and Amazon for the opportunity. We love this show and can’t wait for you to see it. Also, Baywatch Nights spun-off from Baywatch, and it had vampires. Vampires!”

 The week leading into Labor Day features several high-profile launches as streaming services and cable networks gear up for the new television season.

Starz on Sept. 6 will debut its anticipated drama series Power Book II: Ghost (pictured) -- the first of four spinoffs from its hit series Power -- while Peacock on Sept. 4 debuts a new drama series Noughts + Crosses, based on an alternative world in which Africa has colonized Europe and controls its citizens. 

Sci-fi also takes center stage on Sept. 4 with the return of Prime Video’s superhero-themed series The Boys and Netflix’s Mars-themed series Away.  Also HBO Max on Sept. 3 debuts its fantasy-themed series Raised by Wolves.

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting the week of Aug. 31 to Sept. 7 on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

Sept. 2 -- Tyler Perry’s House of Payne & Assisted Living (comedy) -- BET

Sept. 3 -- A.P. Bio (comedy) -- Peacock

Sept. 3 -- The Sounds (drama) -- Acorn TV

Sept. 3 -- Young Wallander (drama) -- Netflix

Sept. 4 -- Anthony (drama movie) -- Peacock

Sept. 4 -- Earth to Ned (talk) -- Disney Plus

Sept. 7 -- Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne (reality) --A&E

Sept. 7 -- Madagascar: A Little Wild (animation) -- Hulu/Peacock

Comic books have been a prime source of TV shows for some time, but the trend has hit what some are calling a second wave, the newer shows having some fun at the expense of superheroes. Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, Amazon’s The Boys and HBO Max’s Doom Patrol all have new seasons, and these comic book offspring offer an offbeat take on the superhero genre that dominates both movies and comics. 

“Superheroes are so omnipresent right now, and some shows look to turn that upside down,” said Eric Kripke, creator and executive producer on The Boys. “We feel like the audience is really hungry for the reaction, the deconstruction to how much superhero stuff is out there.”

Season two of The Boys arrives Friday, Sept. 4. Based on the comic book franchise by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, it’s a cheeky look at what happens when superheroes abuse their powers. 

Kripke has long been what he called a “superfan” of Ennis’s comics, and was crushed to not get to produce Preacher, which was based on an Ennis comic and ran on AMC 2016-2019. When The Boys was in the works, Kripke pushed hard for a role in it. 

Comic Crush 

Comic books have long been a source for TV series, and the genre has hit a high point in the last decade. AMC debuted The Walking Dead, from a Robert Kirkman comic, in 2010. Netflix had Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Iron Fist and Luke Cage, all from Marvel. The CW has Riverdale, which stemmed from Archie Comics, and the DC Comics-inspired “Arrowverse,” including Arrow, Supergirl, Batwoman and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. HBO’s Peabody Award-winning Watchmen was originally a DC Comics series.

“The more outlets that are ordering original programs, the more they will turn to existing I.P., and comics are an ideal source,” Myles McNutt, assistant professor of communication and theatre arts at Old Dominion University and contributor to The AV Club, said. “They offer a wealth of existing source material, sometimes spanning over decades, and their stories are often serialized, giving producers a strong framework to
work from.”

Season two of Doom Patrol started June 25. The characters include Negative Man, Crazy Jane and Robotman. HBO Max calls them “DC’s strangest group of heroes.” 

“There’s a lot of layers to the show,” Jeremy Carver, executive producer and showrunner said. “Our superheroes don’t even like superheroes.”

The Boys sees some pretty ordinary humans take on a self-reverential gang of superheroes. “The superhero stuff out there is so overwhelming that someone had to take the piss out of it,” Kripke said. 

Season two of The Umbrella Academy begins on Netflix July 31. Based on a comic book series from My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way, it is the story of 43 babies born to unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy. Seven are adopted by a billionaire, who trains them to save the world. 

Creator Steve Blackman was not familiar with the comic franchise, but was intrigued when he found out Way was behind it. He saw it not as “a graphic novel about superheroes, but a story about a dysfunctional family.”

Moving In New Directions

There are significant challenges to turning print stories to television, and doing so in a way that wins over diehard fans of the comics. The half-dozen Marvel shows on Netflix, for one, did not enjoy particularly long runs. 

Producers say the biggest challenge is when to be faithful to the source material and when to take it in a different direction. “You cannot do a one-to-one translation,” Kripke said. “Trying to adapt it word-for-word would be disappointing for everybody.”

Kripke described his strategy as “take what you love from the comic and remix it for the show,” which he likened to “an incredibly stressful game of Jenga.”

Blackman mentioned being “inspired by the source material and bringing my own voice to it. Ultimately, you want to respect the existing fans while attracting a whole new audience.”

Comic books offer a rich palette for producers and a trove of established entertainment brands as more and more networks hunt for compelling original content. “If there was once a time when people presumed that a comic book meant a superhero story for young kids, the breadth of adaptations across both film and television has shifted that discourse,” McNutt said, “meaning that the
industry has more latitude to explore the medium’s thematic and generic range.” 

Season two of The Boys premieres on Amazon Prime Sept. 4. Amazon will offer three episodes that day, with new episodes available each Friday until the season finale Oct. 9. There are eight episodes.  

Season one debuted in July 2019. The show is based on a comic book series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, and is an irreverent look at what happens when superheroes abuse their superpowers. 

Season one also had eight episodes. 

The new season finds The Boys on the run from the law, hunted by the Supes, and desperately trying to regroup and fight back against Vought. In hiding, Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) try to adjust to a new normal, with Butcher (Karl Urban) nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) must navigate her place in The Seven as Homelander (Antony Starr) sets his sights on taking complete control. His power is threatened with the addition of Stormfront (Aya Cash), a social media-savvy new Supe. 

Eric Kripke is showrunner and executive producer. Also exec producing The Boys are Point Grey Pictures’ Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver, Original Film’s Neal H. Moritz, Pavun Shetty and Ori Marmur, and Ken Levin and Jason Netter. 

Prime Video released a first-look video for the sophomore season of its original series The Boys.

The Boys, which will debut in 2020, is a fun and irreverent take on superheroes who abuse their powers and the vigilantes who embark on a heroic quest to take them down, according to Amazon Prime. The series stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara and Nathan Mitchell. Giancarlo Esposito, Aya Cash, Claudia Doumit and Goran Visnjic will also appear in season two of the series.

Based on The New York Times best-selling comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, The Boys was is executive produced by Eric Kripke (Supernatural), Seth Rogen (Preacher), Evan Goldberg (Preacher), James Weaver (Preacher), Neal H. Moritz (Prison Break), Pavun Shetty (New Girl), Craig Rosenberg, Rebecca Sonnenshine, Phil Sgriccia, Ken Levin and Jason Netter. 

Prime Video released a first-look video for the sophomore season of its original series The Boys.

The Boys, which will debut in 2020, is a fun and irreverent take on superheroes who abuse their powers and the vigilantes who embark on a heroic quest to take them down, according to Amazon Prime. The series stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara and Nathan Mitchell. Giancarlo Esposito, Aya Cash, Claudia Doumit and Goran Visnjic will also appear in season two of the series. 

Based on The New York Times best-selling comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, The Boys was is executive produced by Eric Kripke (Supernatural), Seth Rogen (Preacher), Evan Goldberg (Preacher), James Weaver (Preacher), Neal H. Moritz (Prison Break), Pavun Shetty (New Girl), Craig Rosenberg, Rebecca Sonnenshine, Phil Sgriccia, Ken Levin and Jason Netter.