The Boys Season 4 Seemingly Confirmed By Karl Urban

Joining in on the kickoff of this year's SXSW Film Festival, Amazon Prime Video finally unveiled a teaser trailer for the upcoming season of "The Boys," which was jam-packed with explosions, butt-kicking, and beans! And since we've just caught our first glimpse at the third season, it's already time to start speculating about the fourth. Lucky for us, Karl Urban — the actor behind The Boys' leader Billy Butcher — has already begun dropping hints at where the show goes from here. While sitting down for an interview with Variety, Urban let details of his incoming production schedule slip, hinting that plans for season 4 are already moving forward when he said: "I'm shooting 'The Boys' through the end of the year."

Although the series has yet to be officially renewed for a fourth season, it sounds like development is already in motion. Given the massive popularity of "The Boys," this comes as no surprise: Prime Video has offered a clear vote of confidence by green-lighting a live-action spin-off series, in addition to "The Boys: Diabolical," the animated anthology that premiered earlier this month. Even in our superhero-saturated reality, the mothership series has managed to make a major splash, so why shouldn't they traumatize us with yet another season? 

For the sitdown, Urban was joined by fellow returning cast members Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, Jessie T. Usher, Chace Crawford, showrunner Eric Kripke, and newcomer Jensen Ackles, the "Supernatural" alum who made his "The Boys" debut in the trailer. Teasing the upcoming season, Urban also said:

"The fun thing about this season is that it really challenges all the characters with 'how far are you willing to go? Are you willing to become the monster in order to defeat the monster?' Every character comes to that precipice and has to make a choice about whether they're gonna leap or not."

But while the duration of the interview hinted at plot details, specifics were unsurprisingly kept under lockdown. When pressed about the musical sequence starring Kimiko (Fukuhara), Kripke cryptically offered: "All I'll say is that it's a classic Hollywood number."

Damn it, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a Butcher!

Urban let details of the production timeline slip while discussing the surprise announcement featured during a recent Paramount investor day: a new "Star Trek" film is on the way, continuing the Kelvin Timeline introduced in the J.J. Abrams-directed 2009 film reboot. News of a fourth film in this saga has been floating around for years but last month Paramount confirmed plans to pull together the "original cast" and get production started by the end of 2022. Last we heard, talks were underway for Chris Pine to reprise his role as James T. Kirk, with the expectation that Urban would return as Dr. Bones McCoy, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Lieutenant Uhura, John Cho as Sulu, and Simon Pegg as Scotty. Sadly, the U.S.S. Enterprise will be short one core crew member, as Anton Yelchin (Chekov) tragically died before the release of "Star Trek Beyond" in 2016.

Since the fourth season of "The Boys" remains unconfirmed and the production schedule isn't yet official, it's unclear whether those "Star Trek": cameras are still set to roll this year. Even after the February announcement, much of the cast seemed out of the loop and Urban's latest update indicates not much has changed in that regard. In the same conversation, Urban told Variety: "I haven't seen a script, I know nothing. But I would love to work with those guys again, so much fun, the best hang. We'll see."

Season 3 of "The Boys" will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on June 3, 2022.