“It was the time of the preacher, in the year of 01, Now the preachin’ is over and the lesson’s begun.” Jesse Custer is heading slowly towards the silver screen with the announcement that we will indeed get a Preacher TV adaptation. AMC has ordered a pilot for the Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon comic book Preacher. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have announced a while ago their intentions of adapting Preacher and now it seems that their preaching has proven fruitful.
The This is the End duo will serve as executive producers along with Breaking Bad’s Sam Catlin. For those who are not acquainted with the story behind Preacher let me get you up to speed. Well, not with the whole story as the comic is very long but with the overall plot. Texas reverend Jesse Custer deals with a crisis of faith one that is only shaken when he learns that God Himself has abandoned his post and left heaven. After learning this, our preacher decides to track down the omnipotent being and make him answer for his actions. On this journey he is joined by his ex-girlfriend Tulip O’hare and, to make matters even more weirder and awesome, Cassidy the Irish vampire. Yes, an Irish vampire. Adding to this, Custer becomes the target of an immortal( and indestructible) gunman properly named The Saint of Killers.
Preacher will begin production in 2015 next summer followed by a 2016 airing. This isn’t AMC’s first comic book property to be adapted to a comic series. I guess you all know The Walking Dead, right? The zombie genre is a never ending goldmine but maybe gun slinging cowboys and Irish vampires will soon catch on. Ori Marmur, Ken Levin, Jason Netter and Vivian Cannon are also attached to the show as executive producers.
There is still the problem of obscene language and gratuitous violence that is present in the comic and it’s something that will most likely be crossed out just as AMC did with Walking Dead. Preacher has all the ingredients for an awesome TV series but we’ll just have to wait a couple more years before we truly see what it’s like to hunt God. If the pilot picks up that is.