Everything we know about the future of The Boys and its many spin-offs.

Akhil Arora, a Film Critics Guild member and a Rotten Tomatoes-certified TV critic, who has been reporting on Prime Video originals since 2016. He has written for NDTV and SlashFilm.

Homelander Gen V
Antony Starr as Homelander // Photo: Prime Video

Spoilers ahead for The Boys season 4 finale.

Oof, what an end. The Boys wrapped up its fourth season in dramatic style, thanks to a string of twists and turns that upended its entire world. While Homelander seemed to have accepted defeat after his modified President-elect assassination plot went awry, Sage returned to reveal she had planned for the big guy to screw it up. The Seven got a helping hand from Butcher—having lost Ryan and Mallory, he left his sickbed and showcased Venom-like newfound powers that tore Vice President-elect Victoria Neuman in half. That effectively handed over the United States of America to Homelander, who enacted martial law and rounded up The Boys as they tried to make their escape in the season finale.

What now? Homelander might have already enlisted every Vought hero to help run his New USA, but he’s got a player in reserve: his dad. In a mid-credits scene attached to The Boys season 4 finale, the puppet President Calhoun took Homelander to see Soldier Boy who’s being kept on ice in a lab somewhere. (If you recall, Mallory put him there in the season 3 finale, after that big Vought Tower confrontation.) Homelander and Soldier Boy didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye. But in this new militaristic era, could father and son find some common ground? The Boys wouldn’t leave us with a tease if he wasn’t coming back. Speaking of the show’s return, here’s what we know.

Will there be a season 5 of The Boys?

The short and happy answer is yes. The longer, slightly sad version? The fifth season will be its last. A month ahead of the fourth season’s premiere, Amazon Prime Video announced that it had renewed The Boys for season 5. There was no hint of it being the final year at that point. That bit came about four weeks later, just two days ahead of the season 4 premiere. In a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account, The Boys creator Eric Kripke dropped the bombshell: “Season 5 will be the Final Season! Always my plan, I just had to be cagey till I got the final OK from Vought. Thrilled to bring the story to a gory, epic, moist climax.”

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Karl Urban as Billy Butcher in The Boys season 4 // Photo: Jasper Savage/Prime Video

Kripke might be famous for misleading fans on how many more seasons they should expect. See: Supernatural. But with The Boys, he’s actually sticking to his word. In 2020, he spoke about a five-season plan for the ultra-violent series. And then, ahead of the fourth season, Kripke reiterated that as he spoke to multiple news outlets. He noted that “five [has] always worked for [him] as a number [because he was] trained on five acts.” When it was confirmed that season 5 would be the last, Kripke added: “[The] plans really solidified that we were going to [make five seasons] years ago. I think we were probably in the middle of making season three, so it could have been three or four years ago that we always knew.”

Given those long-in-the-works plans, Kripke knows how it all ends: “I know in a rough way. We very intentionally leave a lot of space in there for the writers to surprise me and to take a left turn if we feel like it. I don’t totally know how we’re going to get there, but I know the destination.”

The Boys is ending but its universe is growing

Though the series that started it all is reaching its conclusion, there’s a lot more to come from its world. Gen V, the college-set spin-off, was renewed for a second season in October 2023. Filming was delayed and plans were modified after the death of Chance Perdomo—who played the magnetokinetic Andre Anderson—in a motorcycle accident in March 2024. Filming began earlier in July if we are to go by this post by the Gen V account on X.

We might also get The Boys: Mexico from Blue Beetle writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, which producer Gael García Bernal confirmed in December 2023. However, back in May, Kripke warned that it could be a “while away”. He added: “They are still making the deal with the writer for the pilot. He has an amazing pitch, and we all giggle and think about how fun it would be. But there are a lot of hurdles for that show before it’s a real show. He’s got to write an amazing pilot; he’s probably got to write an amazing episode 2. I think he can, and he will, but we are a while away from truly starting to drop in the Easter eggs and the setups and stuff.”

And there might be even more. In an interview in June, Kripke teased that they have “a couple [of] other things … in development.” But The Boys creator wouldn’t be pressed on details, leaving the matter by saying they weren’t “ready to announce anything yet” beyond the aforementioned Mexico spin-off.

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Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau in Gen V // Photo: Brooke Palmer/Prime Video

When might The Boys season 5 release on Prime Video?

That’s a big question with no answer. All we can do is speculate. Save for the first couple of seasons that were released a year apart—season 1 in July 2019 and season 2 in September 2020—fans of The Boys have had to endure two-year waits. The third season arrived in June 2022 and the recently concluded fourth season debuted in June 2024. Going by those numbers, it would be reasonable to expect that the fifth season wouldn’t arrive before June 2026. Meanwhile, with Gen V season 2 now filming, it’s only natural to think that the dorm room drama would return sometime in 2025. As for all the other spin-offs? It’s impossible to say.

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