Guy Ritchie Meets Deadpool In Eric Kripke’s Original The Boys Pitch

3 hours ago 14

Published Jun 13, 2026, 2:01 PM EDT

Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025.

11 years later, Eric Kripke reveals his original pitch for The Boys.

The Prime Video series became a massive hit as it satirized real-world politics, superhero tropes, and cinematic franchises. After debuting in 2019, The Boys came to an end in 2026, as Homelander (Antony Starr) and Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) have their long-awaited confrontation. Now that the fifth and final season has been released in its entirety, the cast and crew are looking back at the making of the show.

On Instagram, Kripke released the original pitch document for The Boys, which is from 2015. He described the series as "an early Guy Ritchie movie, meets DEADPOOL, meets INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, meets a Denis Leary movie, meets THE RAID." In the post's caption, he thanks the "hundreds of actors, thousands of crew, and millions of viewers" who "embraced this insane idea. I'm grateful beyond words, and proud that all these years later, we stayed true to this mission statement." Check out the pitch below:

The pitch is followed by the FYC hashtag, which means For Your Consideration, and is part of the awards season campaign as Kripke pushes for The Boys season 5 to be nominated. Since this is not just any season, but the end of the series, he is going back to the very beginning, before it was even ordered by Prime Video.

Comparing the show to Deadpool in this pitch came before the Ryan Reynolds movies, as the first one did not come to theaters until 2016, and the second one was released in 2018. However, Reynolds' films and his portrayal of the titular character did end up helping to further popularize anti-heroes and ultra-violent, edgier, and darkly satirical superhero stories before Prime Video's The Boys and anti-hero Billy Butcher made their on-screen debut in 2019.

As for the Guy Ritchie comparison, before making PG-13 movies like Sherlock Holmes or The Man from U.N.C.L.E, he started his career with the likes of the R-rated Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, which are more akin to what The Boys would be. Per the pitch, Kripke was basing this on Garris Ennis and Darick Robertson's original The Boys comics, despite the differences there would end up being from the source material.

The final season went on to be more divisive than its predecessors, which were generally better-received. While opinions vary on how the show concluded, all seasons of The Boys are consistent with the original pitch, and not just when it comes to the early Guy Ritchie and Deadpool comparisons. Kripke also wrote about it providing modern-day commentary and what the real heroes, who are a mess in many ways, actually look like, all of which remains true throughout the entire series.

While The Boys is over, the franchise that it started is going to continue. A spinoff called Vought Rising has wrapped filming for season 1 and is set to be released in 2027. The series follows Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) and Stormfront (Aya Cash) during the 1950s as they contend with a murder mystery, the early days of the Vought corporation, and the generation of supes with V1 in their blood. Kripke is an executive producer for the prequel, but he is not the showrunner, with Paul Grellong taking on this role instead.