Simon Pegg Thinks He Might Be "Too Old" to Star in The Boys Adaptation
Posted 12.30.11 by BrentJS
It's going on four years since Columbia Pictures announced plans to adapt the indie comic book The Boys for the big screen and more than a year since director Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Other Guys) expressed his intention to keep the adaptation true to its violent comic book roots by going for an R-rating. It's unclear why the project has been delayed, since the screenplay written by Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (Clash of the Titans) was apparently good enough to interest McKay, who once said that he "would never direct anything" he didn't write, but The Boys still hasn't moved on to the casting stage. That is, with the exception of Simon Pegg, whose likeness was the inspiration for the character Hugh "Wee Hughie" Campbell in the comic book. McKay wants Pegg in the role and Pegg is apparently keen to do it, but the British actor recently admitted to MTV that fears he might be "too old" to play Wee Hughie by the time the movie gets the go-ahead from Columbia.
The Boys was created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson. The series is set in a universe in which superheroes exist, but they are hardly paragons of virtue. Instead, many of them have become mad with power or drunk on their celebrity status. When they step out of line, "The Boys," a group of government-sponsored enforcers, step in to put them back in line, often by employing extreme violence. The live-action adaptation is being produced by Neal H. Moritz and Jason Netter of Kickstart Productions.