Seth Rogen is a name that almost everyone who is familiar with comedy and slapstick humor knows. While you wouldn’t know it from his on screen semi-loser, stoner personas, the man is actually very successful in what he does: making films and series that people love, and making people laugh. He, along with his creative partner Evan Goldberg, are acting executive producers for Amazon’s The Boys, and apparently the journey to see the series to fruition has been one wild ride.
In a recent appearance on Now We Feast’s Hot Ones segment, Seth Rogen explains that he and Evan Goldberg actually wanted to do a The Boys movie years before it was ever given a series order at Amazon. Rogen recounts that the creative duo even submitted the idea to Sony, who agreed that it was a good idea (though they amusingly gave the project to someone else). Here it is in Rogen’s own words:
Something like 'The Boys,' it was just obvious to us. It’s a funny journey with the comic because me and Evan [Goldberg], my partner, we’re big fans of Garth Ennis, who wrote the comic, he wrote 'Preacher.' And we bought the first issue right when it came out. I remember we were like, ‘Oh my god, this would make such a great movie, like kind of regular people fighting superheroes, you know? And we brought it to Sony, and Neal Moritz, the producer, and they were like, ‘Yeah, this would make an incredible movie. We’ll buy the rights to it.’ And then they did, and then they did not hire us to write it or produce it in any way, shape or form [laughs]. They hired other people to do that. And after like a decade of those people just like fucking it up in some way, shape or form, it came back to us basically, and then we turned it into the TV show.
Adam McKay, who seems to run in the same circle as Seth Rogen, was set to write and direct a film based on The Boys’ comic book series for Sony back in 2010. The project never really got off the ground though, and apparently made its way back to Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Now, Amazon’s original series has seen a good amount of success and is on its third season, with not just one The Boys spinoff, but two spin-off series in the works.
Seth Rogen has been a prevalent face in the comedy genre of Hollywood for a while now. He’s been the writer behind a number of now cult classics, like Pineapple Express and Superbad, as well as in front of the camera as an actor in those same productions and more. Nowadays it seems as though he is in his second act, diving into more behind the scenes productions and taking on other creative ventures.
Not only does Rogen have plenty of upcoming Hollywood projects and on the horizon, but Seth Rogen has also started his own weed company. Even more, he’s also become quite the pottery master, and released his own memoir style book, Yearbook, last year ( and Drew Barrymore confirmed it's pretty damn hilarious).
As for The Boys and its related projects, though, Season 3 will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on June 3, with both the live-action spinoff and the animated The Boys: Diabolical series not yet having a release date. Still, The Boys has come a long way from when Rogen and his partner pitched it as a film to Sony, and they will have plenty to show for the unconventional road the project took to get there.
