Amazon Has Pulled ‘The Boys’ Season 1 Off Prime Video And No One Knows Why

Today has been a weird day in the media with Fortnite suing Apple and Google, but why not one more bizarre story before you head to bed?

Tonight I started getting reports from readers that Amazon has taken its flagship series, The Boys, offline for some unspecified reason. Checking myself here in the US, I have found that it’s also offline for me, with the entire page replaced with a “This page is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you try again later” message in its place. I have heard it’s offline in other regions like Spain, but online in some others like Canada. I’m still trying to sort out others.

While it’s certainly possible this may be a temporary bug, a weird thing happened when one viewer complained to support, as they were answered with the following message from the official help account:

This doesn’t make sense because Amazon is the content holder to the series. It’s their show, and one of their most popular and acclaimed with season 2 due out in just a few weeks on September 4.  And the season 2 page is still online.

Could there be a “content holder” issue with Garth Ennis or Darick Robertson from the original comic? Or comic publisher Dynamite Entertainment? That’s unclear and that would be abrupt and out of nowhere. Again, Amazon is heavily gearing up a huge campaign for season 2 of The Boys, and I know many are catching up on season 1 as we speak. I heard from some people who were in the middle of a season 1 episode and it was just…taken down completely, and has not come back up.

I have searched a few dozen other original series on Amazon and I am not seeing a dead page for any of them like I am The Boys season 1. I have asked Amazon for comment but have not heard back yet.

Despite the response from Amazon support, I am still leaning toward this being a technical glitch that may be resolved in short order. You don’t just…evaporate one of your highest profile series two weeks before its new season. Something is weird and wrong here. Hopefully it’s an innocuous as a glitch, but stay tuned as I try to find out what’s going on. I’ll update this article when I find out what’s happened, or if the show comes back online. For now this remains decidedly weird, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it, as it’s like if Netflix just nuked Stranger Things or Hulu took down Handmaid’s Tale out of nowhere. Something’s up, one way or another.

Update: The official The Boys Twitter account tweeted (in character) that they’re “working on it.” So technical? I guess? Still kind of unclear

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels Herokiller and Herokiller 2, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.