If you’ve already did a stint with THE OTHER GUYS, it'd only follow that you’d call on THE BOYS next, right? We found out a while back that Adam McKay, whose most notable movie’s probably ANCHORMAN, was apparently set to direct the movie version of the Ennis/ Robertson comic. I say "apparently" because that fact didn’t come out in any kind of official announcement; it came out in an interview Samuel Bayer did. He directed the NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. remake most recently and was really jonsing to helm THE BOYS, himself.
That scoop’s got corroborated by no less than two sources friendly to Collider just recently. They’re saying that McKay’s in “serious talks” with Sony about getting on the project. == TEASER ==
This project, if it did play out, would be departure from McKay's filmography up 'til this point. He’s sort of had that Scorsese/Dicaprio, Burton/Depp-style cinematic muse/alter-ego relationship with Will Farrell so far, having directed ANCHORMAN, TALLADEGA NIGHTS and STEP BROTHERS in succession before this summer’s THE OTHER GUYS. Turns out that McKay’s actually a hardcore comics fan and he’s wanted to do this kind of project for a while. And I say, why not? If the guy’s been successful in one genre, he probably knows what he’s doing with movie-making, in general.
I doubt it’d happen, but it is sickly amusing to picture Will Farrell as, oh say, the Legend.
Then again, there’s also the question of how viable a BOYS movie would be. Even if you had the bravest studio exec behind this, I reckon it would still have to be toned-done from the comic lest it earn a disastrous NC-17 rating. There’s also the question of how viable an R-rated superhero-related movie might be, now, after WATCHMEN and PUNISHER: WAR ZONE’s disappointing returns. Then again, KICK-ASS did well enough that a sequel’s already on the way. If they kept the budget tight, I could see THE BOYS hitting without much compromise.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Studios and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. HYBRID BASTARDS! is available here and UNIMAGINABLE is available here for pre-order on Amazon.com.