By Kaitlyn Huamani
LOS ANGELES (AP) --"The Boys," Amazon Prime Video's epic superhero satire series, will end with its fifth season.
The show's creator and showrunner Eric Kripke announced "the end has begun" while promoting the series' fourth season, which premieres Thursday on Prime Video.
"Season 4 Premiere Week is a good time to announce: Season 5 will be the Final Season! Always my plan, I just had to be cagey till I got the final OK from Vought," Kripke wrote on X, referencing the powerful company that manages the celebrity-like superheroes on the show. "Thrilled to bring the story to a gory, epic, moist climax."
To accompany the announcement, Kripke shared an image of what appears to be a redacted script for the final episode of the fourth season, with a profane message at the bottom referencing the final season.
The series, which is based on a comic of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, follows a team of vigilantes who take on a group of superheroes who are treated like A-listers and abuse their power. As The Boys, led by Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Hughie Campbell ( Jack Quaid ), also take on the Vought conglomerate that monetizes these superheroes, the show comments on capitalism and corruption while maintaining its status as a sharp, gory action show.
"The Boys" has been one of Prime Video's most popular original series, spawning two spinoffs, "Gen V" and "Diabolical." Both take place in the same universe as "The Boys," with "Gen V" focusing on college-aged heroes mastering their powers, and "Diabolical" telling a series of short stories through animated episodes.
In response to a request for comment, Amazon said it had no further information to share on the end of "The Boys" or the status of "Gen V."
Kripke executive produces "The Boys" with several collaborators, including comedy production duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg under their production company, Point Grey Pictures. The collaborators also worked on developing "Gen V" together, and the show's second season is in development.
Kripke said he and the production team had to "rethink everything" about the spinoff's second season when one of the show's stars, Chance Perdomo, died in a motorcycle accident. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kripke said the revised storyline will honor the late actor and his legacy. "It's the least we could do," he said.
Season 4 of "The Boys" will be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video on Thursday. Season 5's release date has not yet been announced.
Apple sells $46 billion worth of iPhones over the summer as AI helps end slump
Apple snapped out of a recent iPhone sales slump during its summer quarter, an early sign that its recent efforts to revive demand for its marquee product with an infusion of artificial intelligence are paying off.
Sales of the iPhone totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% increase from the same time last year, according to Apple's fiscal fourth-quarter report released Thursday. That improvement reversed two consecutive year-over-year declines in the iPhone's quarterly sales.
The iPhone boost helped Apple deliver total quarterly revenue and profit that exceeded the analyst projections that sway investors, excluding a one-time charge of $10.2 billion to account for a recent European Union court decision that lumped the Cupertino, California, company with a huge bill for back taxes.
Apple earned $14.74 billion, or 97 cents per share, a 36% decrease from the same time last year. If not for the one-time tax hit, Apple said it would have earned $1.64 per share — topping the $1.60 per share predicted by analysts, according to FactSet Research. Revenue rose 6% from last year to $94.93 billion, about $400 million more than analysts forecast.
But investors evidently were hoping for an even better quarter and appeared disappointed by an Apple forecast that implied its revenue for the October-December quarter covering the holiday shopping season might not grow as robustly as analysts envisioned. Apple's stock price shed about 2% in Thursday's extended trading, leaving the shares hovering around $221 — well below their peak of about $237 reached in mid-October.
The latest quarterly results captured the first few days that consumers were able to buy a new iPhone 16 line-up that included four different models designed... Read More