Latest news with #WB
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
ExplainSpeaking: The truth about poverty in India
Dear Readers, Over the past few months, there's been a flurry of news about India's poverty rate, or the ratio of people who are considered officially poor. First, on April 25, the Government of India came out with a press release titled 'India's Triumph in Combating Poverty', where it used the World Bank's 'Poverty and Equity Brief' of April 2025 to state that '171 million lifted from extreme poverty in 10 years'. Then, earlier this month, the World Bank came out with an update on the methodology and level of its poverty line and stated that just 5.75% of Indians now live under abject poverty — down from 27% in 2011-12. There are two key takeaways. One, according to new WB estimates, India's poverty levels in the past were actually lower than previously estimated (see TABLE 1). For instance, in 1977-78, India's poverty level was not 64% but 47%. The dialling back of poverty rates continues through the decades. The second key change in the WB update was the adoption of a new poverty line — $3 a day — and according to this new income level, the proportion of Indians living in abject or extreme poverty has fallen from 27% in 2011-12 (around 344.4 million or 34.44 crore Indians) to just under 6% (around 75.22 million or 7.5 crore) in 2022-23. As heartening as this news is, there are several common misconceptions about how to read this data, what it actually means and why many question it. For instance, when you look at the $3-a-day poverty line, do you multiply it by 85 (the current market exchange rate between the US dollar and Indian rupee) to arrive at Rs 255 a day as the income level for ascertaining whether an Indian is poor or not? If you do that, you are mistaken because the $3 poverty line is calculated on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, and the conversion rate to Indian rupee is not 85 but 20.6. Simply put, it is the level of income used as a cut-off point for deciding who is poor in any economy. It is important to note here that the context (both time period and location) is critical to arriving at a meaningful poverty line. For instance, an Indian receiving a salary of Rs 1,000 a month may not have been considered poor in 1975, but today that income (Rs 33 a day) will barely buy anything. Similarly, a monthly salary of Rs 1,00,000 (or Rs 3,333 a day) in today's Patna will be comfortable for a person to live by, but the same salary in Paris or New York may not buy the same lifestyle. Since there is no one level of poverty — what is a comfortable level for one is just okay for another and barely enough for the third — one can create several poverty lines to match the context and analytical use. Governments, especially in developing and poor countries, want to identify the extent of poverty in their countries. This has two uses. One, to help them gauge the extent of poverty and shape welfare policies for the poor. The second use is for governments, policymakers and analysts to understand whether a set of policies has actually worked over time to reduce poverty and improve wellbeing. Historically, India had been a leader in poverty estimation and India's poverty line methodology and data collection influenced the rest of the world in how to study poverty. However, India's last officially recognised poverty line was in 2011-12. It was built on a 2009 formula suggested by a committee led by noted Delhi School economist Suresh Tendulkar. Since then, there has been no update on the method. In 2014, a committee led by former RBI Governor C Rangarajan was commissioned to provide a new method, but this recommendation was never officially accepted. Since then, thanks to gaps and changes in relevant data collection, India has increasingly used either the Niti Aayog multidimensional poverty index (which is fundamentally different in how it measures poverty) or relied on the World Bank's poverty line. As explained, poverty lines make sense only when they can capture the context, like the purchasing power at a particular time and place. That is why for WB's poverty line to make sense, it has to be based on the purchasing power parity calculations. The first-ever poverty line was set at a dollar a day. Here's how it came about: 'In 1990, a group of independent researchers and the World Bank examined national poverty lines from some of the poorest countries in the world and converted those lines into a common currency by using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates. The PPP exchange rates are constructed to ensure that the same quantity of goods and services are priced equivalently across countries. Once converted into a common currency, they found that in six of these very poor countries around the 1980s the value of the national poverty line was about $1 per day per person (in 1985 prices). This formed the basis for the first dollar-a-day international poverty line,' according to the World Bank. Over time, as prices went up in every country, the WB had to raise its poverty line. In June, they have now raised it to $3 a day. The PPP exchange rate for Indian rupees in 2025 is 20.6. As such, the poverty line delineating abject or extreme poverty for an individual in the US is an income of $3 a day, while for India it is Rs 62 a day. For the UK, the PPP conversion rate is just 0.67, while for China it is 3.45 and for Iran it is a whopping 1,65,350. India's own (domestically formulated) poverty line in 2009, before the Tendulkar recommendation, was Rs 17 a day per person for urban areas and Rs 12 a day per person for rural areas. In 2009, Tendulkar raised the poverty line to Rs 29 per day per person in urban areas and Rs 22 per day per person in rural areas, and later to Rs 36 and Rs 30, respectively, in 2011-12. In 2014, Rangarajan recommended raising the domestic poverty line to Rs 47 per person per day in urban areas and Rs 33 in rural areas. Many economists, such as Himanshu, professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and someone who worked with Tendulkar during the formulation of the last official poverty line, have written extensively on the subject. He showed how, in the absence of a robust and updated domestic poverty line and given the gaps and changes in data collection, India's poverty estimates exhibit wide variation, creating both confusion and controversy (see TABLE 2). Poverty in India could be as low as 2% or as high as 82% depending on the choice of poverty line and methodology. The same trend of variation exists in the reduction in poverty rates — they could be steep or fairly gradual. Upshot Bizarre as it may seem, especially for a country with so many people at low levels of income and consumption, as well as a country with an enviable record of studying poverty, India's poverty lies in the eyes of the beholder. How do you know if a person is poor or not? How many are poor? Should one quote 5.75% who live in abject poverty (Rs 62 a day)? Or look at 24%, the poverty line for 'lower middle-income countries' such as India? Should one consider 20% as the rate, the proportion of Indians who voluntarily line up to offer labour instead of a paltry amount? Or 66% who are provided free food by law? TABLE 3 attempts to provide some context on the World Bank's poverty lines and how they compare with India's reality as evidenced by official government surveys and data. Earlier this year, when the Union Budget was unveiled, the government waived off all income tax for those earning an income upto Rs 12 lakhs per annum — that works out to be Rs 3,288 per day. In essence, the government believes that imposing any income tax on such an Indian will be overtaxing them and holding back their consumption and the growth of the broader economy. There are two ways to look at the WB data, although they are not mutually exclusive. One, to celebrate the reduction in the proportion of Indians living in what is defined as abject poverty ($3 or Rs 62). Two, to give ourselves pause to understand the actual state of economic well-being (or the lack of it) of an average Indian when as many as 83% of Indians are living off Rs 171 a day. Remember, these poverty lines are inclusive of all income or expenditures. How much did you spend or earn today? Share your views and queries on Take care, Udit Udit Misra is Deputy Associate Editor. Follow him on Twitter @ieuditmisra ... Read More
MTV Lebanon
3 days ago
- Business
- MTV Lebanon
25 Jun 2025 12:02 PM World Bank backs recovery and reconstruction effort
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved yesterday a US$250 million financing to Lebanon to support the most urgent repair and reconstruction of damaged critical public infrastructure and lifeline services, and the sustainable management of rubble in conflict-affected areas. The Lebanon Emergency Assistance Project (LEAP) will prioritize and sequence interventions to maximize economic and social impact within the shortest timeframe and provide a phased approach to response, recovery and reconstruction. The Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) of the impact of the conflict in Lebanon between October 8, 2023, and December 20, 2024, estimated total direct damages across 10 sectors at US$7.2 billion, and reconstruction and recovery needs at US$11 billion. Damage to critical infrastructure and buildings that are critical to economic activity and to the health and safety of communities was estimated at US$1.1 billion across the transport, water, energy, municipal services, education and health care sectors. Considering the scale of needs, the LEAP was designed to support restoration of public infrastructure and buildings, given this is a precondition to economic and social recovery. "Given Lebanon's large reconstruction needs, the LEAP is structured as a US$1 billion scalable framework with an initial US$250 million contribution from the World Bank and the ability to efficiently absorb additional financing—whether grants or loans—under a unified, government-led implementation structure that emphasizes transparency, accountability, and results," said Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Middle East Division Director. "This framework offers a credible vehicle for development partners to align their support, alongside continued progress on the Government's reform agenda, and maximize collective impact in support of Lebanon's recovery and long-term reconstruction." The WB financing will support immediate response activities required to accelerate recovery and create the conditions that favor a return to normality, including the safe and well-planned management of rubble that maximizes the reuse and recycling of rubble. Critical support will also be provided to the rapid repair and recovery of essential services, such as water, energy, transport, health, education and municipal services. Finally, the LEAP framework will also support the reconstruction of severely damaged infrastructure, starting with designs and environment and social assessments financed through WB initial financing. Drawing on lessons learned from reconstruction projects around the world, LEAP uses a transparent, data-driven area-based prioritization methodology endorsed by the Council of Ministers, which provides an integrated package of public recovery and reconstruction investments to restore social services and promote economic recovery and growth in conflict-affected areas of Lebanon. Similarly, to ensure the Project's operational readiness and its efficient and prompt implementation, the government has undertaken critical reform measures in the project's implementing agency, the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR). These include the establishment of a complete and functional CDR Board of Directors and streamlining administrative and decision-making processing for the LEAP, in line with international best practices for emergency projects. These measures are part of a broader institutional reform agenda that positions and equips CDR to efficiently manage the scale and urgency of Lebanon's recovery and reconstruction effort, guided by transparency, efficiency and accountability principles. The LEAP will be implemented under the strategic guidance of the Prime Minister Office, with coordination across line ministries at the level of the Council of Ministers. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport will have overall leadership and responsibility for Project execution, and the Ministry of Environment will provide oversight for environmental and social requirements, including for rubble management. In addition, the World Bank will support LEAP with enhanced implementation and supervision support measures with the recruitment of an international lender's engineering firm to conduct enhanced compliance due diligence across the entire framework. This will include oversight of technical, environmental and social, fiduciary aspects and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) detection. This mechanism will help ensure LEAP is executed with the highest standards of compliance, integrity and effectiveness.
The Hindu
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
World Bank and ADB delegates attend CRDA's orientation programme in Amaravati
A delegation of the World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) visited various construction sites in Amaravati and participated in an orientation programme organised by the A.P. Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) on environmental and social safeguards, health and safety of workers, and other aspects related to the capital city construction, at its head office here on Thursday (June 19, 2025). CRDA Additional Commissioner G. Suryasai Praveen Chand explained the steps taken for environment protection in Amaravati during the construction stage and safety of workers, facilities being provided at workplaces, welfare programmes being implemented for the residents of Amaravati, skill development programmes, and employment generation. 'No child labour' Also, he emphasised that the construction of Amaravati was being done in strict compliance with gender equality norms and devoid of child labour. Mr. Praveen Chand threw light on the Grievance Redressal Mechanism (GRM) through which the issues raised by farmers and residents of the capital were being dealt with. WB senior social development specialists Bayana Venkata Rao and Ranjan Verma, and the ADB team discussed the process of assessment of environmental and social systems in Amaravati, and the resettlement action plan. They gave an overview of the mandates of WB and the ADB in the Amaravati project, and the importance of environmental and social welfare activities. Joseph, senior environmental specialist, and Damanjeet Singh Minhas, environmental safeguards adviser, from the WB and ADB, explained the social safeguards to be implemented by the contractors, environment protection measures and safety protocols to be followed in the event of untoward incidents. CRDA and Amaravati Development Corporation Limited officials, including chief engineers Ch. Dhanunjaya, N. Srinivasulu and M. Prabhakar Rao, superintending engineer R. Hanumanth Reddy, divisional engineer P. Venkateswarlu, and executive engineer K. Srinivasa Rao were present.
Tom's Guide
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
I just picked my summer binge watch — and Hulu has all 128 episodes of 'Dawson's Creek'
This week sees the premiere of the latest project from Kevin Williamson, the screenwriter-director of such popular TV shows as "The Vampire Diaries," "The Following" and "Tell Me a Story" and '90s horror movie favorites like "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "The Faculty" and the "Scream" franchise. But with its coastal setting (Wilmington, North Carolina, and yes, that's a hint) and family-focused melodrama (this one's about a once-mighty fishing dynasty fighting to stay on top), the TV icon's new series "The Waterfront" — set to premiere on Netflix on Thursday, June 19 — is reminding us of another great Williamson title from way back when: "Dawson's Creek." Across six seasons, the late '90s classic chronicles the lives and relationships of the titular Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek) and his close-knit group of friends in a waterfront New England town, beginning in high school and continuing into college. With 128 hourlong episodes of saucy storylines and witty humor, coming-of-age character-building and one of TV's best love triangles, "Dawson's Creek" is a great summertime binge — here's why you should add it to your warm-weather watch list. Long before there was "The Summer I Turned Pretty," "Outer Banks" or "Euphoria", there was "Dawson's Creek,' the seminal '90s teen soap. The Kevin Williamson-created WB drama, which ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2003, focused on four teenagers navigating adolescence and the challenges of growing up in the fictional New England town of Capeside, Massachusetts: aspiring filmmaker Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek), sarcastic tomboy Joey Potter (Katie Holmes), charming slacker Pacey Witter (Joshua Jackson) and new girl in town Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams). Couplings between the core four — particularly the angst-filled, ongoing love triangle between Dawson, Joey and Pacey — as well as latter additions like Jack McPhee (Kerr Smith) and Audrey Liddell (Busy Philipps), provide the bulk of the show's romantic messiness, but there's plenty of family drama, too, from an infidelity that rocks the Leery household to the legal issues of Joey's imprisoned dad. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Though it paved the way for countless teen dramas over the decades, "Dawson's Creek" differed from previous youth-focused programming thanks to both the provocative storylines and thoughtful writing it afforded its young characters. Over the course of 128 episodes, Dawson and the rest of the precocious, preternaturally articulate Capeside kiddos dealt with love and loss, divorce and depression, addiction and attraction — topics that were usually reserved for adult shows only. And whether you're revisiting the "Creek" or watching it for the first time — all six seasons are available to stream on both Hulu and Disney Plus, BTW — there's a quaint thrill is seeing the early days of not only Kevin Williamson's TV work but also the acting careers of now-staples like Joshua Jackson (currently the star and executive producer of "Doctor Odyssey"), Katie Holmes (who recently popped up on season 2 of Peacock's "Poker Face") and Michelle Williams (excellent in Hulu's limited series "Dying for Sex"). Altogether, "Dawson's Creek" is a nostalgic, engrossing watch, one packed with enough break-ups and make-ups, relatable characters and groundbreaking storylines to last you until Labor Day. Watch "Dawson's Creek" on Hulu now
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The best job I ever had': ‘From ‘Supernatural' to ‘The Boys,' Eric Kripke talks his biggest hits — and miss (ahem, ‘Tarzan')
Eric Kripke is proof that even the most successful creators in Hollywood still battle impostor syndrome. 'I will let you know when I have that moment,' the Supernatural creator and The Boys showrunner told Gold Derby when asked when he felt he'd finally made it in the cutthroat industry of entertainment. 'It's my honest answer. Every good writer I know is like, 'This is the one that they realize I'm a fraud.' I mean, none of us really know what we're doing.' More from GoldDerby 'The Penguin's' Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti reveal the secrets behind their transformative performances (being huge Bat-fans helped) How some Emmy categories lost and others gained nomination slots Peter Straughan breaks down the power plays and personal tragedy in 'Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light' Even after Supernatural, a show that Kripke conceived and ran for the first five seasons of its 15 (!) seasons, the Toledo, Ohio, native feared he'd never work again. The modest and candid Kripke did finally admit that he's felt a little bit more stability in the wake of The Boys' insanely popular run since it premiered on Prime Video in 2019 (its fourth season bowed this past June, with a fifth and final season expected in 2026). In our latest edition of The Gold Standard, Kripke shares stories from all his various supernatural hits. After developing and writing the WB's ill-fated 2003 one-season wonder Tarzan and writing the 2005 horror movie The Boogeyman, Kripke created Supernatural, which followed the adventures of the monster-hunting brothers Sam () and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). I was hoping to get to five [seasons]. But what I was really hoping for was to correct a lot of the mistakes I made with my show before it, which was Tarzan on the WB. That was just such a flaming sh-tshow. And the vast majority of it was my fault. So I really wanted to build a show that corrected those mistakes. Like, for example, if you're going to make a network TV show, you really need to figure out what your engine is. How are you going to generate story every week, 22 times a year? Tarzan had none of that. Supernatural was basically designed to be a story engine, whereas there's some supernatural mystery every single week, and the guys have to get involved every single week, and it's all like Americana and urban legends. … It was just designed to be an effective network television contraption. And I think it did that well, and I think it's one of the reasons it went as long as it did is it. It's maybe too good of an engine [laughs], it just never, never stopped. And then through the exploration of it, seeing how great Jared and Jensen were and then, Misha [Collins] and all the other amazing characters, it sort of evolved in a very organic way. Because you're just looking at great film and great actors, and you just start saying in the writers room, 'Why aren't we why are we pushing that further?' So all the mythology and all the character stuff, it was always there, but it probably became heavier as the show continued. The [moment] that pops into my mind is when we were shooting the pilot, and it was a scene on a bridge where Sam and Dean are talking about their mom. And it's kind of emotional. And I felt good about who we had cast. They seemed great, but you never know until you know. And watching that scene [on monitors] at video village, that was the minute I knew, and I was like, "Oh, shit. These guys are really good, and you really believe them as brothers." And I turned to Peter Johnson, who is one of the executive producers, and we both gave each other the exact same look at the exact same time, like, "Oh, I think we might have something here." I really remember that very vividly. Though Kripke hardly felt bulletproof after the success of Supernatural, he found some validation when he was able to team up with J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau for Revolution. The post-apocalyptic series followed the aftermath of a worldwide electrical shutdown and ran on NBC for two season before it was canceled. The idea [came from] hooking up with [Abrams' production company] Bad Robot just out of a general meeting. They had a short story about all the world's power coming off. Meanwhile, I wanted to do a story [that was] dystopian, post-apocalyptic, like deep into civilization ending. I had been reading The Stand at the time. That was what was jazzing me. And so it was a little chocolate and peanut butter because, I'm like, 'Well, why don't we combine both ideas?' Which we did. And then we just started making it. And then we wrote the pilot and got the green light from NBC and Jon came into the office and was like, 'Hey, I would like to [direct] this pilot.' And I'm like, 'What are Jon Favreau and J.J. Abrams doing sitting in front of me in a room?' Like, that would be great. So then it all kind of came together. And that was my memory of that show outside of losing all the sleep in the world because it was such a hard show. The best parts of that show were sitting in a writer's room with J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau and watching them bounce ideas off each other. That was just a really fun front row seat. Any time a show gets canceled, you shed a tear just because you put so much effort into it. I would say looking back, I feel like my primary emotion was relief. It was such a hard show, and I forgot every lesson I learned with Supernatural. It was completely serialized. There was no engine. There was no clean path. But it was still a network show. Like, had that show been an eight-episode streaming show with a bigger budget? It would have been called The Last of Us [laughs]. It would have been good! Like, people ask me there, "What do you think of The Last of Us? I'm like, 'Oh, it's like if Revolution was good." But trying to do 20 episodes of Revolution was just so, so hard and took two years out of my life. So as much as I love those actors and missed that show, I didn't miss the feeling that I was slowly dying every day. As someone who was making a career out of mining supernatural stories, time travel almost felt like a rite of passage for Kripke. The NBC series starred Abigail Breslin, Matt Lanter, and Malcolm Barrett as a trio of disparate professionals attempting to stop a nefarious organization from altering the course of history through time travel. Like Revolution, however, it only lasted two seasons. I love genre, but I also am really proud of the fact that I really haven't gone to the same genre twice. And I've always thought that time travel was a really great concept for a series. And obviously we didn't invent it. I mean, Quantum Leap probably did it the best, but there was Time Tunnel and there were a bunch of them. … Again, [it's] back to an engine, really. You understand that every week you go to a different historical period and there's some adventure interacting with famous, or not so famous, historical figures. And it gives you a structure when you're in the writers' room. I was calling it 'Bourne Identity through time.' But I didn't want to do it alone because I think I was still shellshocked from Revolution. So I brought the idea — I didn't have much more than that — but I brought the idea to Shawn Ryan, and we really got along, and we started kicking it around together and developing it. And then it became Timeless. I am proud of that one. One it was a genuinely great experience. I'm still close with Shawn and going through that battle with Shawn was really nice. I mean, we ended up getting canceled, but that show did find itself when it started telling stories in history about women or disenfranchised minorities or these amazing stories in history that were true but most people didn't know about, once we got off stuff like the Lincoln assassination and we got into [other factual events]. With pride, I will say that we were the first ones to talk about [legendary slave-turned-lawman] Bass Reeves and Colman Domingo was our Bass Reeves. And the fact that we were able to find and tell those stories, and were a lot of times the first time anyone was telling them, is something that I'm proud of. I think it was a very inclusive show, and it was during the first Trump presidency. And so this notion that history is for everyone was, as I saw it, a really important message. Versus all his other major television shows, The Boys represented a shift for Kripke in multiple ways. One, it was based on existing IP, the adult comic book series created by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. And two, the R-rated superhero ensemble costarring Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, and Erin Moriarty is far darker and more violent than any of Kripke's previous network television work. The series has received eight Emmy nominations to date, including Best Drama Series in 2021, and won for its stunt work in 2023. I was passionate about Garth Ennis comics and was a huge fan of The Boys. I took a meeting with a producer named Ori Marmar, who worked for Neil Moritz, basically just to say to him, "I can't believe you gave Preacher to somebody else." Because Preacher was my all-time favorite comic. And he's like, "Well, we have The Boys." I'm like, "Oh, I'll just take that then." But no, I think anyone who really knows me and even works with me in the writers' room, they know that my humor skews really dark and I have a pretty filthy mouth. And I love profane humor … and so suddenly I was able to make this show that is by far the most like my personality than anything I've been able to do up to this point. So the fact that it hit as big as it did was very gratifying because [with] most everything else I had to pretend to be more innocent than I was. Like, I love Sam Raimi and super gory horror and really profane comedy and emotion and satire, I'm a huge satire nut, and being able mix all that up into one stew was the best. It's the best job I've ever had. We never really worried about ['superhero fatigue']. Just the opposite, actually. We saw that as an opportunity. I mean, when we were pitching the show, we were pitching it almost 10 years ago. I think Deadpool had just come out, and our whole pitch was 'There's a tidal wave that's about to crash, and someone's going to do this for TV, and it might as well be us.' The balloon is gonna be too big and someone has to take the piss out of it because it's a piss balloon. … I'm a comic book nerd, and comics went through the same evolution. There were straight superhero comics, and then guys like Garth Ennis came along and they started subverting the form. And that was overdue in the feature space and television space. So we kind of knew it was coming, and we wanted to be at the head of it. So we never felt like, we've got the counterprogramming that people are going to want. And then as the show continued, I think we stayed fresh by always making sure that it was never about the superheroes. The superheroes are the slick packaging on the outside of the cereal box. But what it's really about is late stage capitalism and politics. And how do you hold on to hope, and the corrosive aspects of revenge. So the superhero thing is just a metaphor to get to a lot of deeper issues that are really going on in the world, both politically and emotionally. I think that's what early Marvel did well. And once your superhero stuff is just about superheros, yeah it's probably pretty boring. But when your superhero stuff is about anything but, I think people see that and appreciate it. We realized it very early, but I don't think we started with just the metaphor of, "It'll be fun to use superheroes to satirize celebrities." That was the idea. But once you dig a little deeper you say, "Well, these aren't just celebrities, these are authoritarians and fascists." And once you realize these are authoritarians who present as celebrities, you realize we're telling a metaphor that is more like the present moment we're living in than almost anybody else right now. … And so we felt an obligation to run with that ball as far as we could. So, very quickly there, I gave the directive in the room that we're all going to be news junkies. We're all going to know every single thing about every single political issue. And then we're going to make a show that's a satire of that. And I take a lot of pride in for as bananas as this show is, we're also one of, if not the most, current show on television. Which, you know, doesn't say great things about the world or reality, but we're able to talk about issues that a lot of shows can't talk about, and even less now that there's this cooling effect of people are scared about being political. But someone's got to be the kid in the back of the classroom throwing spitballs and, and we're proud that that's us, right up until the moment they vanish me. Then I'll be like, "I didn't mean it." Like I won't be brave about. While The Boys has made an art form of subverting the superhero genre, it's also done what every other successful crimefighter inevitably does as well: franchise. In 2022 came the animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical and the Audible podcast The Boys: Deeper and Deeper. The next-gen streaming series spin-off Gen V launched in 2023, and two more shows are on the way, The Boys: Mexico and Vought Rising. I think it's been really fun and challenging to find that sweet spot where each show has its own reason for existing. And so it's not just like a cash grab sell out, but it's like each one is a story. A you're like, "Oh, that's an interesting story. I would like to hear that story. And I'm interested in those characters." And so how each one becomes its own animal with its own creative vibe and rhythm and look, while still being a part of this sort of larger tone that we're creating. That's a really fun and hard challenge. But I really enjoy that. I'm interested in not just like, "Well, how do they all become one long story you have to f--king watch? And how do I just create more homework for the audience?" It's more like, how do you make each one exist on its own and as great as you possibly can? And I hope the audience somehow senses that in between the lines, that we're not just doing it just because we like money. We're doing it because we actually think those are interesting stories to tell. Like, we have this prequel [Vought Rising] coming up. And it's superheroes in the 1950s, but it's like the grittiest, most real version of the '50s. I've just never seen that before. I've seen it in like six or seven minutes of Watchmen, but that's it. And so to do a whole world that lives there, I'm just really intrigued to see what that looks like. And I would watch that, whether I knew about The Boys or not. Best of GoldDerby Tina Fey on 'The Four Seasons': 'It was a challenge to be restrained about where we put jokes' 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero Jonathan Pryce on the 'great responsibility' of playing a character with dementia in 'Slow Horses' Click here to read the full article.
