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Even kids with extraordinary abilities need a place to hone their skills. Young wizards mastered their wands and learn to spell at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. X-Men trained at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. A new generation of Jedis went to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy. If you’re a potential superhero or “supe” in the super dark universe of The Boys, you’ll want to graduate from the Godolkin University School of Crimefighting. But first, you’ll need to survive. Competition at the school is murderously cut-throat and the mission-vision of its nefarious founder John Godolkin and Vought International is a million percent for-profit. Gen V, the much-awaited spin-off series of Prime Video’s The Boys, is a subversive take on the superhero-in-training narrative, with the biting satirical humor that makes The Boys series a massive hit. Gen V chronicles the Godolkin college experience of America’s next generation of supes “as they put their physical, sexual, and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the best contracts in the best cities."
With raging hormones and out-of-control superpowers jacked up by the power-inducing drug Compound V, we can expect R-rated Animal House screwball debauchery, Hunger Games battles for survival, and Carrie-level bloody melt-downs on the regular. Gen V’s first trailer looks like a nightmare-fueled campus tour. A Sesame Street-inspired puppet gets its head ripped off. Soldiers geared up for war lie dead in the hallways. And the undergraduates spend much of their time splattered with blood. Gen V producer Seth Rogen has seen a few episodes and told Collider's very own Steve Weintraub, “It’s completely insane…Dear God, what are they doing over there?!” Fans of The Boys series and the comics on which it was based sure can’t wait to find out.
Editor's Note: This piece was updated on September 20, 2023.
When and Where Will 'Gen V' Be Released?
Prime Video confirmed the release window on July 13 via the Gen V Twitter account.
The official release date was revealed during San Diego Comic-Con, just a week later. The three-episode premiere of the highly anticipated spin-off series will stream on Prime Video on Friday, September 29, 2023. Bonus: the folks behind Gen V have created an interactive website for the show's Godolkin University that provides a countdown to the series' release and some fun extras. Check it out here.
What Is 'Gen V' About?
The official synopsis reads:
Set in the diabolical world of The Boys, Gen V expands the universe to Godolkin University, the prestigious superhero-only college where students train to be the next generation of heroes—preferably with lucrative endorsements. You know what happens when supes go bad, but not all superheroes start out corrupt. Beyond the typical college chaos of finding oneself and partying, these kids are facing explosive situations … literally. As the students vie for popularity and good grades, it’s clear that the stakes are much higher when super powers are involved. When the group of young supes discover that something bigger and sinister is going on at school, they're put to the test: Will they be the heroes or the villains of their stories?
Godolkin University's internal ranking system plays an important part in the world of the show, determining which heroes could go on to be really super. Gen V star Jaz Sinclair broke down how the system works in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Here's what Sinclair revealed:
"The ranking system factors in all of these qualifications for all of the students and chooses a top 10. And essentially, the top 10 students are the ones that are positioned to represent a city or hopefully be in the Seven. […] They say it's a fair system. But like a lot of things in Vought, it's absolutely not, because then you get kinda famous, and all of a sudden, you're number one.”
Watch the Trailers for 'Gen V'
A first-look teaser trailer for Gen V was released by Prime Video on December 3, 2022. While featuring minimal dialogue nor plot details, the trailer does promise that the new series will have the same unapologetically violent and darkly comic tone that The Boys has, but this time involving college students. The teaser trailer also reveals that several characters from The Boys will be appearing in the series including A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), and Adam Bourke (P.J. Byrne). There's also a puppet version of The Deep.
The official teaser trailer for Gen V was released online on July 24, 2023. The trailer introduces us to Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), an ambitious freshman with the power to blood bend, who aspires to be the first black woman in The Seven. The 109-second spot teases all the partying, hormones, and drama you would expect from a series set in college, with the added gratuitous amount of gore, super-powered chaos, and dick-exploding that comes with the world of The Boys. The teaser trailer also reveals that Claudia Doumit's Victoria Neuman will appear in the series.
Prime Video released a red band trailer highlighting the blood we've come to expect from The Boys. This trailer is definitely not safe for work; consider this your warning.
Class is almost in session! Here is your orientation video from the one and only Godolkin University. Brought to you by none other than Vought International.
Who's In the Cast of 'Gen V'?
Gen V stars Jaz Sinclair (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as the blood-bending freshman Marie Moreau and Lizze Broadway (American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules) as the shrinking Supe Emma Meyer. Patrick Schwarzenegger (The Staircase) will play Luke Riordan AKA Golden Boy, and other students include Chance Perdomo (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as the magnetically powered Andre Anderson, Derek Luh (Shining Vale) and London Thor (Shameless) as the gender-shifting Jordan Li, Asa Germann (Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story) as the super-strong and invulnerable Sam, and Maddie Phillips (Teenage Bounty Hunters) as the mind-controlling empath Cate Dunlap. Shelley Conn (Bridgerton) stars as the school's Dean, Indira Shetty, with Sean Patrick Thomas (Save the Last Dance) as Andre's father Polarity, Marco Pigossi (Invisible City) as Doctor Edison Cardosa, Alexander Calvert (Supernatural), Jason Ritter (Freddy vs. Jason), and the great Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption), who will play Professor Rich "Brink" Brinkerhoff. Jensen Ackles has also teased that he'll be making a cameo in the series as his Season 3 character Soldier Boy. As mentioned, Jessie T. Usher, Claudia Doumit, Colby Minifie, and P.J. Byrne, will be reprising their roles from The Boys in cameo appearances as well. More recently, we also found out that Chace Crawford will reprise his role as The Deep as well, likely also as a cameo.
We got some more details about the new characters recently when the official Gen V character descriptions were made public. From these descriptions, we know that Marie Moreau is an 18-year-old superhero who can use her own blood as a weapon. She's a freshman at Godolkin University and is eager to prove herself, but when she gets involved in a mystery, her plans begin to fall apart. Emma Meyer, Marie's fellow freshman and roommate, is an "insecure and naive" young super who goes by the name Little Cricket, and she will be helping Marie to navigate the mysteries of the university. Andre Anderson is a junior with magnetic powers who is Golden Boy’s best friend and the son of a famous superhero. It seems the name Polarity is an inherited one and Andre is next in line, but when he also gets involved in the central mystery, his superhero future may become more uncertain.
Andre's best friend Luke Riordan, AKA Golden Boy, is a senior and the highest-ranked student at the university. He has the ability to light his entire body on fire. The gender-swapping Jordan Li is described as a "competitive student at Godolkin University" and likely sees Golden Boy as a rival. They have the unique ability to switch between male and female forms, with each form offering different powers (the male form is indestructible, and the female form can fire energy blasts). Cate Dunlap, who can essentially control anyone she touches, is also a junior at Godolkin University and is friends with Jordan and Andre. She’s Golden Boy’s girlfriend and one of the popular kids at the university. The descriptions also reveal that Shelley Conn's Indira Shetty holds a unique position at the college as she doesn’t have powers. However, she is an expert in superhero psychology, which makes her highly valuable to the school and extremely dangerous at the same time. Indira takes a special interest in Marie when she arrives at the school. Andre's father Polarity was also revealed to have a significant role as he is a celebrated alumnus and trustee of the university who will stop at nothing to make sure his son becomes one of The Seven.
Of course, the person who will actually make the final call on that is Clancy Brown's Professor Rich “Brink” Brinkerhoff, whose former students include the likes of A-Train, Queen Maeve, and The Deep. Brink sounds like the one who will get to train the next great supe who will join The Seven, and he's already eyeing Golden Boy for the role. Meanwhile, Asa Germann's Sam might just be the most complicated of the supes involved in the spinoff, as he’s plagued by hallucinations and struggling with his sense of reality. It's not immediately clear if Sam is a student or not (seems likely though). The one character we still know very little about is Marco Pigossi's Dr. Edison Cardosa, who is simply described as "a gifted doctor with ties to Godolkin University." What those ties are could very well prove to be the driving force of the show's plot.
Who Is Behind 'Gen V'?
Gen V was developed for Amazon Prime Video by Craig Rosenberg, with Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters serving as co-showrunners. The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke and Rosenberg serve as executive producers alongside Fazekas, Butters, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Neal H. Moritz, Ori Marmur, Pavun Shetty, Ken Levin, Jason Netter, Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, Craig Rosenberg, Zak Schwartz, Erica Rosbe, and Michaela Starr. We spoke with Kripke about the series, and he revealed some exciting details, saying:
The young ensemble [is] fantastic. We have connections to The Boys universe and cast sort of peppered carefully throughout the season. So there are lots of Easter eggs that I think fans will love. And it's a great combination of social commentary, blood, there's lots of blood, a really cool mystery. And I think people will be surprised as they come into the show, and the show evolves, the implications that Gen V has on The Boys. The two shows have some really interesting connections. So I'm probably saying more than I should, but I'm really excited. We're thrilled with the results.
Rosenberg, who wrote The Boys Season 2, Episode 3 "Over the Hill With the Swords of a Thousand Men" wrote the pilot for Gen V which is loosely based on the popular comics The Boys created by Ennis and Robertson.
Will 'Gev V' Get a Season 2?
Before the writers' strike, Prime Video had already made a writers room for Season 2. While we wait to see fan reception to Gen V, Prime Video is said to be happy with the series and fully expects it to be a smash hit. We still have to wait for an official announcement of a second season, but all signs point to it happening. Amazon's Head of Television Vernon Sanders has previously said that more seasons are on the cards, but it all comes down to how the first season is received. Here's what he told EW:
"We think that if fans respond the way we've responded to 'Gen V' we will have many more seasons of the show. In the master plan between Eric and Michele and Tara, I think these shows will continue to talk to each other in fun ways.”
When Did 'Gen V' Film?
Filming for Gen V commenced in May 2022 and wrapped the following September. The spinoff had undergone some massive changes over the course of its production, including recastings and shifting showrunners.