As a producer on Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys,” Seth Rogen has a hand in one of television’s most popular comic book properties. In a new interview with Total Film magazine, Rogen admitted that “The Boys” would “not exist or be interesting” without the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that doesn’t mean he watches Marvel movies. The actor said that as an adult with no children, he finds it hard to get into the MCU, as it’s a bit too “geared toward” children for his personal taste.
“I think that Kevin Feige is a brilliant guy, and I think a lot of the filmmakers he’s hired to make these movies are great filmmakers,” Rogen said. “But as someone who doesn’t have children… It is [all] kind of geared toward kids, you know? There are times where I will forget. I’ll watch one of these things, as an adult with no kids, and be like, ‘Oh, this is just not for me.’”
Part of why of Rogen wanted his production company to launch “The Boys” is because he realized adults didn’t have any comic book films or shows with a more mature, adult perspective. That’s no knock against Marvel, however. And while the MCU has its high-profile detractors, from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino, Rogen approaches the franchise’s divisiveness with a fair hand.
“Truthfully, without Marvel, ‘The Boys’ wouldn’t exist or be interesting. I’m aware of that,” Rogen said. “I think if it was only Marvel [in the marketplace], it would be bad. But I think it isn’t – clearly. An example I’m always quoting is, there’s a point in history where a bunch of filmmakers would have been sitting around, being like, ‘Do you think we’ll ever make a movie that’s not a Western again? Everything’s a Western! Westerns dominate the fucking movies. If it doesn’t have a hat and a gun and a carriage, people aren’t going to go see it anymore.’”
“The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema,” Rogen added. “They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.”
“The Boys” is not only returning for its fourth season later this year, but it’s also getting its first live-action spinoff series. The college-set “Gen V” is also expected to stream on Prime Video at some point this year.