Eric Kripke Reveals Short Film on The Boys' Billy Butcher in The Works

There’s a lot of anticipation surrounding the upcoming second season of Amazon’s The Boys and while there’s a lot of questions regarding how the characters will deal with the events of the season one finale, namely Karl Urban’s Billy Butcher, showrunner Eric Kripke has revealed an exciting new tidbit regarding the team leader.

In an interview with Collider, Kripke revealed that though fans shouldn’t expect to see Butcher until the second episode, that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to catch up with his story in the time between the season one finale and his rejoining the group. According to Kripke, the flashback sequences were cut from the episode due to pacing issues, but his team has saved the footage, along with other extra material, and is putting together a short film to be released shortly after the second season debuts on the streaming platform with the events of the short film still being referenced throughout the season.

In addition to the short film, entitled Butcher, Kripke revealed that the show received a much bigger budget from Amazon, which was used for much more than action set pieces or visual effects, noting that it helped bought his team time for a lot.

“It doesn’t just mean huge action scenes. It does mean some of those. We have some huge sequences,” Kripke said. “There are larger sea mammals. There is some bigger stuff for sure. But there is also a lot more intense stuff and scenes that were really difficult for the actors emotionally and require a bit more time. It’s not just the visuals that are epic; I think the emotions are a little more epic this season and that just takes some TLC with the actors.”

In Season 2, The Boys are on the run from the law, hunted by the Supes, and desperately trying to regroup and fight back against Vought. In hiding, Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon), and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) try to adjust to a new normal, with Butcher (Karl Urban) nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) must navigate her place in The Seven as Homelander (Antony Starr) sets his sights on taking complete control. His power is threatened with the addition of Stormfront (Aya Cash), a social-media-savvy new Supe, who has an agenda of her own. On top of that, the Supervillain threat takes center stage and makes waves as Vought seeks to capitalize on the nation’s paranoia.

The Boys is an irreverent take on what happens when superheroes, who are as popular as celebrities, as influential as politicians and as revered as gods, abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. It’s the powerless against the super powerful as The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about the supergroup known as “The Seven.” The show retains most of the comics (available for purchase here) boundary-pushing violence and sexuality while exploring the dark side of superhero celebrity and fame.

The series was created by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, who are responsible for another subversive comic book-inspired series, AMC’s Preacher, and Supernatural creator Eric Kripke.

Season 1 is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video with the second season set to debut on September 4.