Even when the show isn't airing new episodes, The Boys has never held back from making fun of the world of television. Their latest target is HBO Max following the overhaul they and Warner Bros. Discovery have been going through for the past several weeks.Over the past several months, Warner Bros. Discovery has been undergoing changes that include putting the kibosh on dozens upon dozens of projects that were near completion or had been finished. The Boys' fictional company, Vought International, made an announcement poking direct fun at their new changes with their streaming service.To mock the recent changes that HBO Max is going through as a streaming service, Vought International's Twitter account tweeted a fictional ad. "To begin 2023, we’re proud to unveil the most effective restructuring in entertainment history," the post reads. "Vought++ is now Vought+ again! We’ve unbundled your favorite apps like VTV+ and VSPN+, and eliminated 35% of our films. All for the new low price of $119/month, plus!" They tweeted a four-second clip of Vought's "movies," which include films starring the ever-so-famous supes from The Seven, both alive and passed on.
Because of how much the superhero genre has dominated the landscape of Hollywood for the past decade, The Boys has never shied away from mocking both the genre itself and the corporations that produce such media. Because HBO Max has streamed movies and television shows starring DC superheroes, The Boys can easily target them. The show targeted the tropes of superhero media and the companies producing them before, much like how they made fun of Sony when they badly misread Morbius' popularity and decided to re-release the film in theaters.
This was a pretty easy target from The Boys knowing how much these drastic changes from Warner Bros. Discovery have dominated the news cycle for the past month or so. Because what they've done are not some minor tweaks here and there. They are full-scale starting over with both these new projects and pretty much discarding ones that were finished or all but finished. While they are entitled to do whatever they feel is best, this new overhaul has led to some backlash, like getting Henry Cavill back as Superman, which many fans wanted, only to go back on that not too long afterward.
Because they are signalling that they are starting over, this probably won't be the last time The Boys takes shots at HBO Max for their recent moves. In retrospect, they've at times even been ahead of the curve, like how they've mocked that companies have elected to keep the actors who have played their supes despite the controversies surrounding them. This is not unlike how DC might let Ezra Miller continue playing The Flash despite their legal issues.
The Boys seasons 1-3 are available on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Vought International/Twitter