Amazon is clearly riding high with the success of The Boys, since the show was renewed for a third season ahead of the second season’s premiere. It’s unclear when filming will get to begin on the next batch of episodes due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the scripts are being written and the first piece of casting was already confirmed earlier this year. Supernatural star Jensen Ackles is set to leave The CW series behind and will take on the role of the Vought supe “Soldier Boy” in the new season. He reunites with Eric Kripke in the role, who says that fans expecting a nice Jensen are in for a rude awakening.
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“I think anyone expecting Jensen to show up and be a good guy, they will be disappointed. I’ll say that! [Laughs],” Kripke told Variety. “In the comics he’s mostly just kind of bumbling and subservient to Homelander, I would say. As we’re writing him in this, we’re getting to really talk about the history of Vought because he’s like John Wayne. He’s one of these guys that’s been around for decades of Vought history. And he was Homelander before Homelander, so he’s from a different era, but he’s got the ego and the ambition — it just comes across in a different way because he’s from a different time.”
In the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic series, Soldier Boy is abused with a capital A by both Homelander and Billy Butcher. A variant of Marvel’s Captain America, the character leads the Avengers parody “Payback” and like the Star Spangled Man, is a legacy title passed down from hero to hero so Vought can maintain a consistency. It’s unclear if the TV series will go down the same patch when they bring him to air, especially since Kripke’s above quote refers to him as “from a different era.”
When announcing Ackles’ casting, Kripke had a similar tone, saying: “Jensen is an amazing actor, an even better person, smells like warm chocolate chip cookies, and I consider him a brother. As Soldier Boy, the very first Superhero, he’ll bring so much humor, pathos, and danger to the role. I can’t wait to be on set with him again, and bring a bit of Supernatural to The Boys.”
Production on the new season of The Boys may not begin until the early part of 2021, making it unclear when the episodes could premiere.
