Showrunner of The Boys, Eric Kripke, recently sat down for an interview in which he discussed some of the pitfalls of streaming television.
Eric Kripke recently sat down with Vulture to talk about the third season of The Boys. Towards the end of the interview, Kripke began talking about how the concept of family is central to everything he does, including The Boys. When the interviewer asked him about the problem Star Wars is facing, Kripke responded back with a bit of sarcasm.
“It does seem like the potential drawback is the Star Wars problem, where the universe starts to feel small because everyone is related to one another.
Yeah, I mean … it’s really a shame that Star Wars turned into such a huge failure because no one liked it and it continues to fail and be obscure because everyone hates the family stuff.
I mean, people dig that shit. It’s awesome! Everything from Harry Potter to Star Wars to Supernatural — that Joseph Campbell stuff works every fucking time, over a thousand years now. I could point out all the ancient myths where it’s the father and the son. You don’t mess with success. That’s not a Star Wars problem; that’s a thousand-year-old structure-of-campfire-stories thing that I have zero problem plugging into.”
In the final question of the interview, Kripke was asked about his thoughts on streaming television after now having helmed three seasons of The Boys.
Kripke pointed out that his background in network TV has given him a big leg up in the department of streaming, mostly because he knows the importance of keeping an audience hooked. He took a shot at some of the practices he sees in the area where a show will be 10 episodes in total but the first eight will all be fluff.
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“Fair enough. When I spoke to you for a panel when The Boys first premiered, I asked how you thought about episodic structure while writing a season of streaming TV. Three seasons into a huge streaming series, how do you think about these things now?
Look, I love streaming. I can’t see ever going back to network. It’s the ability to do two things: have most of your scripts written before you shoot a day of film, and then have all the episodes finished before you turn them over to air. There are logistical benefits that would be impossible to give up because you can tell a coherent piece in a way you simply cannot with network TV. It’s already aired; you threw it out the door. You’re locked in. It happens all the time: We’re in the middle of filming episode seven, and we realize there’s a different story line we need. We still have time to go back and shoot it for episode one and drop it back in.
The downside of streaming is that a lot of filmmakers who work in streaming didn’t necessarily come out of that network grind. They’re more comfortable with the idea that they could give you ten hours where nothing happens until the eighth hour. That drives me fucking nuts, personally. As a network guy who had to get you people interested for 22 fucking hours a year, I didn’t get the benefit of, “Oh, just hang in there and don’t worry. The critics will tell you that by episode eight, shit really hits the fan.” Or anyone who says, “Well, what I’m really making is a ten-hour movie.” Fuck you! No you’re not! Make a TV show. You’re in the entertainment business.”
