“The Boys” co-creator Garth Ennis loves to write wild and wacky stories. Believe it or not, but the disturbances in the world of Hughie Campbell are far from the weirdest to spill out of Ennis’ pen. One of Ennis’ most notable works, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon, remains “Preacher.” The comic book series follows preacher Jesse Custer who becomes possessed by an entity known as Genesis that gives him the uncanny power to command others. With dark, humorous stories that venture into blasphemous territory and even a character named Arseface, it’s safe to say that “Preacher” doesn’t possess what one would call “mainstream appeal.”

Ennis knew that, too. Appearing at Wizard World 2009 (via FilmBuffOnline), the writer explained how “The Boys” movie would be easier to make than “Preacher.” “With ‘Preacher,’ if you start pulling cards out of the structure, it collapses pretty quickly,” he said. “It’s a 2,000-page story, and nearly all the elements rely on other elements.” Ennis added, “With ‘The Boys,’ you can just isolate those five characters and you can have a very simple story about people who deal with superheroes. … You would probably have to lose a lot of the commentary on history, politics and corporate culture that you get in ‘The Boys,’ but it really is just a story about a team of guys who beat the crap out of superheroes.” Neither “Preacher” nor “The Boys” received movies in the end. Both of them were turned into television shows, though, with “Preacher” running for four seasons on AMC.

In 2008, Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay signed on to write “The Boys” movie, which was set to be produced by Neal H. Moritz of “The Fast and the Furious” fame. The search for a director took a few years, though, with Adam McKay eventually confirming his official involvement in August 2010.

Chatting to Variety, the filmmaker discussed how “The Boys” would be his next project after wrapping “The Other Guys” and said the script wasn’t too far from going leaving the page to the cameras. “They already have a script and we’re doing a rewrite on it so hopefully getting the whole thing into shape in the fall with maybe a shoot happening in January,” he said.

The deadline of January 2011 came and went, but McKay’s name remained attached to the project for years thereafter. By this point, Seth Rogen, who eventually produced the Amazon Prime series, had also taken a pass at the script and become involved in its development. There were fears that “The Boys” movie was dead when Columbia Pictures dropped out of making it in 2012. However, shortly after Columbia dropped the project, McKay said on his X (formerly known as Twitter) account that Paramount Pictures was in the mix. Despite the setbacks, the signs looked optimistic that “The Boys” would be one of the movies that escaped development hell. Oh, how wrong everyone was about that ….

As news of a potential “The Boys” movie circulated throughout Tinseltown, more actors and filmmakers opened up about the project. Most — if not all — of them expressed excitement about the potential of the film, including Rob Corddry, who was riding a wave of success in 2010. The actor made a name for himself after his stint on “The Daily Show” and continued to build a wide-spanning filmography to make several generations of performers blush.

In the promotional tour for Steve Pink’s “Hot Tub Time Machine” in March 2010, Corddry spoke to “The Flickcast” about the type of roles he would like to tackle in the future, and brought up a film adaptation of “The Boys” out of his own volition. “I just read a script based on a comic book called ‘The Boys,’ which is great, and I just loved it,” he said.

Corddry didn’t reveal the name of the character he hoped to play in the movie, but it’s likely that he must have been considered for the role of Hughie Campbell at some point. The actor shares a resemblance to the comic book version of Wee Hughie, and it isn’t too difficult to imagine him as a contender for the gig — especially if the No. 1 choice Simon Pegg had said no to it.

“The Boys” deals with an endless array of action-packed and superpower-charged sequences. Homelander alone possesses super strength, heat vision, and the power of flight, so to bring him to life on the big screen would be like tackling Superman — albeit a more tyrannical and evil version. For any studio or production company, the main thought here is, How much will this cost to make?

Speaking to Collider in 2013, screenwriters Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay discussed how “The Boys” movie had been closer to entering production than most people realized. However, the budget proved to be the biggest sticking point. “It’s really been figuring out exactly what the budget’s gonna be,” Manfredi said. “All of these different things go into how much money can you spend and still make it ‘The Boys’?” Hay also mentioned another important aspect for consideration. “If this was gonna be $5 million you could make it hard R, you could just do whatever you want,” he said, hinting at a potential compromise.

Remember, this was a time before the likes of “Deadpool” and “Joker” demonstrated to studios that R-rated comic book movies could be lucrative and highly profitable. The most recent R-rated comic book movies in 2013 were the “Kick-Ass” films and “Dredd,” which famously flopped at the box office. Resultantly, no executive in town was about to greenlight an expensive, CGI-heavy film for an adult-only audience (what about those Happy Meals and toy lines, right?). There had to be a middle ground, which might have been impossible given the source material.

Everyone involved in “The Boys” movie holds their own theories and beliefs of why it didn’t pan out in the end. However, few were as close to the project as Adam McKay, who worked on the film for a number of years. In an interview with IndieWire in 2015, he touched upon his lengthy experience on “The Boys” and how no one in Hollywood was biting.

“I was trying to do Garth Ennis’ ‘The Boys’ at one point, and I took it to every studio, every production financing place in town,” he said. “And they were always like, ‘No.’ I had this crazy pre-viz reel that I’d done, and it was insane, like superheroes doing cocaine. And they all said, lazily, ‘So it’s like “Watchmen”?'” He said he came to the conclusion that no one was prepared to take a chance on “The Boys,” so he upped the weirdness of the pitches.

McKay’s “Watchmen” comments intrigue but aren’t surprising in the least. In 2009, Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” arrived as a darker, more adult take on comic book heroes. Yet despite going on to some notoriety and gaining plenty of fans, it flopped at the box office, only making $185.4 million from a $130 million budget. Expectedly, it scared off studios from producing anything with the words “mature” and “superheroes” for years to come, with “The Boys” movie suffering as a result. Be sure to read all about the history of Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” when you’re done here.

It’s an open secret that “The Boys” on Amazon plans to end with its fifth season. Of course, there’s still “Gen V” and the endless possibilities of spinoffs on the table, but the curtain call nears for this current iteration of the beloved anti-superhero series. Actor Laz Alonso, who plays Mother’s Milk on the show, has an idea of how it could end, though: With a film.

Speaking on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Alonso said: “I’ve been unsuccessfully pitching that we end the show with a feature film to Eric [Kripke]. Like, make the last episode of Season 5 the cliffhanger and announce the film that we have been filming since the beginning of the series.”

Alonso’s co-star Antony Starr, who portrays Homelander, added his support to the idea, saying: “Okay, I’m down.” Alonso asked the crowd if they liked his suggestion and received a chorus of cheers in response. He joked that everyone should flood Kripke’s X account with messages and demand the film. Why is the plug being pulled on the popular Amazon Prime Video show, though? Read on to find out the real reason “The Boys” is ending with Season 5.