After a long period in development hell, the live-action adaptation of The Boys comic book series is finally making progress over at Amazon. Originally imagined as a movie, the project changed several hands and homes before Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg teamed with Amazon for a TV series. Now, the superhero show has cast several major roles, but the interesting thing is that none of them are actually "The Boys," the titular team of the series. The show has cast all the members of The Seven, a Justice League-esque supergroup, with stars including American Gothic's Antony Starr and Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford.
In the world of The Boys, superheroes exist and have become corrupted by fame and celebrity, with little care given to actual heroics. The story follows a powered CIA group called The Boys, whose members monitor superheroes and intervene when they get out of line, often with violent results. One of the more antagonistic groups they face is The Seven, a clear analog for DC's Justice League with parallels to Superman, Batman, etc. It's these characters that the TV adaptation has cast first, rather than The Boys themselves.
According to Deadline, Antony Starr has been cast as Homelander, leader of The Seven. He's the primary antagonist in the comic book and has powers similar to Superman. Starr is perhaps best known for his roles on the TV shows American Gothic and Banshee. Dominique McElligott joins Starr as Queen Maeve, the Wonder Woman of the team. McElligott most recently appeared on the TV shows The Last Tycoon and House of Cards. Nathan Mitchell rounds out this faux-Trinity as Black Noir, a mysterious member of The Seven who is almost always shown in silhouette with his face obscured. Mitchell has appeared in episodes of Supernatural and iZombie.
The rest of The Seven is rounded out by Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl) as The Deep, an AQUAtic member of the team, and Jessie T. Usher (Survivor's Remorse) as A-Train, a character with super-speed who is faster than a train. The five actors will join Erin Moriarty, the only other announced castmember at this time. Moriarty plays Starlight, who in the comics is the most recent addition to The Seven. However, the TV version could always change this.
The Boys was created by Garth Ennis (Preacher) and Darick Robertson, while Supernatural creator Eric Kripke is overseeing the TV adaptation. Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, who successfully (depending on who you ask) adapted Ennis' Preacher for AMC, are set to direct The Boys.
No premiere date is set for The Boys just yet, but CinemaBlend will be keeping an eye on it, so check back in for more updates in the near future. In the meantime, keep track of everything coming and going on TV with our midseason premiere schedule and our 2018 superhero TV schedule.
