The Boys Creator Says Animated Spinoff Does Things "Too Crazy" for Live-Action Show
We're on the eve of the premiere for The Boys Presents: Diabolical, the first animated spinoff of The Boys. The Prime Video series is set in the world of the breakout hit based on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic book, giving showrunner Eric Kripke the opportunity to give new characters and even stalwarts more of the spotlight. The advantage of animation is it allows for more storytelling possibilities, even allowing the creators to go bigger and wilder than even live-action adaptations. Considering how crazy things have gotten for the first two seasons of The Boys, that's a pretty big statement.
"We can try things with these and be completely nuts with form and different style," Kripke told Variety. "I love that shit for being able to really hopscotch and have radically different styles and just try things that are the craziest things we possibly can — even a little too crazy for the show because it's animation and you can take it so much further with animation than you can with live-action. That part has been a blast. We look at it like, what ideas can we get out of it and how far can we push this whole universe? I think the animated version gives us a chance to do that."
As of earlier this morning, The Boys Presents: Diabolical debuted with a perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes. ComicBook.com's Nicole Drum was one of the critics who gave the series four out of five stars. "When The Boys Presents: Diabolical was announced, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke described the animated anthology series as 'unexpected, funny, shocking, gory, moist, emotional episodes' and suggested that they would rival the insanity that is The Boys live-action series," Drum wrote in her review. "The reality is that Kripke was half right. The Boys Presents: Diabolical is funny and shocking and gory and emotional, but the spinoff is not even close to as insane as its parent series. Aside from a few misfires, the series delivers a solid glance at the larger world Vought's manufactured heroes exist in, offer a few insights into key characters, and delivers something that even the most casual of The Boys viewer can enjoy.
There are eight episodes in the anthology series. Some of the creative minds behind the episodes include Awkwafina, Garth Ennis, Eliot Glazer and Ilana Glazer, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, Simon Racioppa, Justin Roiland and Ben Bayouth, Andy Samberg, and Aisha Tyler.
Make sure to check out The Boys Presents: Diabolical when it premieres March 4th on Prime Video.