AMC Working on Preacher TV Series

[StewShearerOld]

AMC Working on Preacher TV Series

AMC is adapting the comic series Preacher with Breaking Bad's Sam Catlin as showrunner.

To say that AMC found success with its TV adaptation of The Walking Dead is the sort of thing that one might refer to as an "understatement." The series has broken <a href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/the-walking-dead-ratings_n_4098367.html>numerous ratings records and easily cemented itself as one of the most popular shows on cable television. Perhaps hoping to replicate that accomplishment, the network has revealed that it will once again be looking to comics for source material, this time with a show based on Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher series.

Preacher, which follows the disillusioned Rev. Jesse Custer on a literal quest to find a derelict God, will be tended to by the talents of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as well as Breaking Bad-producer Sam Catlin. Rogen and Goldberg, who recently worked together on the film This Is the End, will write the script while Catlin will serve as executive producer and showrunner. The show will also be overseen by Original Films' Neil Moritz, Ori Marmur, Vivian Cannon, Ken Levin and Jason Netter, all of whom will also work in executive producer roles.

Given AMC's track record for high quality shows (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Mad Men), there shouldn't be too much concern over whether or the network can handle Preacher. That said, if there are fans with any doubts, it should be noted that the rights to the series didn't just fall into AMC's hands. The network apparently had to fight off some considerable competition to win the rights, a fact that will hopefully translate into it taking care with its adaptation.

Source: <a href=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/amc-adapting-preacher-seth-rogen-656840>The Hollywood Reporter


Permalink

 

[teebeeohh]

the bitching that will follow the second they announce the cast is gonna be amazing.


personally i kinda liked preacher, except for some things towards the end that i didn't like but i am really looking forward to this

 

[Tanis]

This could be good, though I have a hard time seeing that guy as the lead.

Hopefully they'll have as much fun with the series as I had reading it.

Better get Hellboy to play the immortal cowboy.

 

[Flutterguy]

Never read the comic, didn't even know it existed. Looks like a great concept though. Can't wait to completely forget about this then marathon entire seasons on netflix XD

 

[Kross]

I liked Preacher, but the violence makes Walking Dead look like children's programming - will be interesting to see how much makes it to the screen.

I'm still hoping for someone to take on Transmetropolitan someday.

 

[oldtaku]

Whaaaaaat? This would get someone burned at the stake in a lot of states.

Seriously, the plot, the dialogue, even the characters are all actively blasphemous to just about anyone who believes that sort of thing. Which is most of the people in the United States.

I loved it in a juvenile way, but this seems like too much of a s@#$storm for any network. I guess we'll see. Or maybe they'll neuter it.

 

[Novaova]

I can't wait for AMC to fire Sam Catlin and slash the budget at the end of the successful first season.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I don't see how this can work. The violence will be reduced, alot, and I imagine characters will be very different than in the comics or not included at all because I don't think any American network has the balls to put a faithfull version of Arseface on TV. I have no idea how they could approach how religion is portrayed in Preacher. The same go's for the upcoming Constantine show.

The way TV is in the US, some things just cannot be done.

 

[Elijah Newton]

*jaw drops* *picks up* *fumbles / drops jaw again*

Look, I was a crazy huge fan of this comic and maintain that the comic as a totality was one of the best beginning-to-end story arcs I've ever read. I've always wanted to see it on a screen but there's no way it could be crammed into a trilogy, much less a single movie so tv it is. Based on The Walking Dead, AMC is a great fit, a superlative choice.

Buuuut?

*rubs temples*

Now that I'm all growed up, it is so unbelievably inappropriate. What redeemed the vileness of its content (which I wholeheartedly loved, don't get me wrong) was that it was almost perfectly even handed. Whoever greenlights this, though, is going to have to be superfine with blasphemy, homophobia, racism and Troma-level violence. Arseface alone is just so? nggh.

You also can't not do it that way.

"Oh, well let me see: We had an angel, a whore, an eunuch, several dozen idiots, an unkillable mick, a one-man holocaust in a duster coat, the occasional twenty-course banquet for the mother of all fat fuckers, inbreeding, family feuds, bulimia, a retarded child (always good for a laugh), and the utter destruction of our most sacred shrine and secret retreat in the detonation of a fifty-ton bomb."

Also, I'd like to submit John Malkovich for Herr Starr and James Marsden for Jesse Custer. Marsden might be too old, though.


(pauses, reads source)

Rogen and Goldberg are writing the script. Um. Um. Not sure which way that'll slant it. Could be ?ok? Breaking Bad's Catilin sounds more promising as a show runner. While I don't know too much about what that role entails, after the success of BB they'll likely have a lot of credit with the studio to push the material through. Still, if it's got Ennis's blessing that overturns my hesitations.

*chuckle* Wonder if they'd get James Franco to play Jesse. That's? actually not the worst casting decision I could see. Hm.

 

[Elijah Newton]

One more note on the source article :

Tulip O'Hare, Jesse's beer-guzzling vampire ex-girlfriend, accompanies him on his quest for answers.

That's a typo, right? They're not going to try mashing those two characters together? right? Right? We're going to have Tulip O'Hare, ex-girlfriend and Cassidy, beer-guzzling vampire buddy as two separate and discrete entities.

*eyes narrow*

Right?!?

 

[Fox12]

I've never heard of this before, but the google pictures made it look rather... violent, in a juvenile kind of way.

AMC could pull it off though, who knows.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

... No. I'm sorry, but I can't get excited for this. Why? Because, Preacher is just a series that can't translate well on TV if you want to translate the feel of the comic properly. Preacher is violent, dark, no holds barred. It has some effed up imagery but also, it's very tied to the period it published into.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the Saint of Killers on screen, but for this to get greenlighted, they would have to cut off much of what made this series good to begin with. It would be even worse than what happened with the Walking Dead...

One more note on the source article :

Tulip O'Hare, Jesse's beer-guzzling vampire ex-girlfriend, accompanies him on his quest for answers.

That's a typo, right? They're not going to try mashing those two characters together? right? Right? We're going to have Tulip O'Hare, ex-girlfriend and Cassidy, beer-guzzling vampire buddy as two separate and discrete entities.

*eyes narrow*

Right?!?

... First. Freaking. Strike, AMC!

 

[Andy Chalk]

I stopped reading Preacher before it wrapped up, but I loved it through the first 40 or so issues. I can't imagine it as a live-action series, though. I just can't visualize any "real" person giving the characters the same life they had in the comics; supporting characters like Arseface, the Saint of Killers or even Jody and TC are easy enough to fill, but who's going to play the three leads? And how are you going to capture the runaway insanity of the whole thing, while keeping it grounded in the essential earthiness of characters like Jesse, Cassidy and Tulip?

Best-case scenario, it's a hit with viewers unfamiliar with the source material - something akin to Walking Dead, maybe. But I think even that is expecting (or hoping for) a lot.

 

[Crimsonmonkeywar]

I can't wait for AMC to fire Sam Catlin and slash the budget at the end of the successful first season.

We have a winner folks, no more post needed

 

[Starke]

I'm still hoping for someone to take on Transmetropolitan someday.

Ages ago, Patrick Stewart expressed interest in playing Spider. No idea if he's still up for it, but, that should knock the awesome factor up a bit for the possibility.

In unrelated adaptations, I'd love to see Bruce Boxleitner playing Elijah Snow from Planetary, but... you know, one Warren Ellis series at a time.

 

[Nathan Josephs]

amc has decided to be awesome in the last 5 years.

 

[Nurb]

No one will trust AMC to work with them because they're greedy bastards that slash budgets and fire creators

 

[Therumancer]

I liked Preacher, but the violence makes Walking Dead look like children's programming - will be interesting to see how much makes it to the screen.

I'm still hoping for someone to take on Transmetropolitan someday.

Transmeteropolitan would be awesome, and honesty I would have expected that to be made before Preacher if someone asked me. Largely because it covers *some* of the same territory as "Max Headroom", which while a failure in it's initial run (largely due to not being taken care of right) became a cult classic of the sort networks are taking a look back on now to see how and why they survived even out in the fringes. Of course to be honest though it's such a character-centric piece that I'm not sure if they could cast Spider properly, and if they DID cast him I'd be afraid the networks would ruin it, sort of turning the show into one of the jokes from the comic (where they had all the shows and stuff in the comic world people were basing on Spider once he became famous, all missing the point of what he was like, what he actually stood for, or how he went about what he did).


Preacher... well I can almost see this. To be honest "Supernatural" has had me thinking a lot about "Preacher" and wondering of the finale of Supernatrual was going to eventually lead to them (Sam and Dean) hunting down God to make him take responsibility like in Preacher. If this show is made they will have to do something else though.

Honestly though the reason why I say "I can almost see this" is because I don't think AMC could do this without ruining it, the only ones that have a chance is HBO (maybe). Simply put a lot of the things in Preacher are really offensive but also what give the series it's charm, and almost everything is there for a reason. The violence isn't an issue, I'm thinking of the deviant sex. Jesus De Sade, Ms. Oatlash, "The Meatman", anal fixated seriel killers (and the macho man cop who is secretly a homosexual submissive hunting them), the homosexual sex detectives... one of whom is literally named "Buggery Bob" and is accidently hired to anally rape Herr Starr by one of his assistants, and then speaking of Herr Star... lol... the guy is mutilated into a walking sight gag so he looks like a bipedal penis, and the only way he can get it up anymore is to have a hooker sodomize him with a special dildo he had his armorers make.... and I mean crap, I'm just getting started since I'm not even getting into Arseface or what Jessie's family gets up to. You *could* gloss over this stuff and all the intentional gross outs and what not, but in doing so it wouldn't be Preacher anymore, and again within the context of the story all of this gross out stuff actually serves a purpose and means something in the greater context of the story (what exactly happens, to whom, and why).

To be honest I'm surprised and a bit disappointed Garth Ennis let go of the rights, especially after his forewards in he graphic novel about concern over imitators and people not getting the point since it would likely just turn into "Meaness for the sake of meaness" or however he put it, since as I said, it wasn't just an endless psychopathic display, all of what you saw and happened was nessicary and part of the storytelling.

Ah well, we'll see what happens. Simply put to do "Transmetropolitan" or "Preacher" right means your going to offend pretty much everybody. Maybe that will happen, and if it does, we'll know it was done correctly. The only ones who likely shouldn't be offended are the hardcore fans.

I guess I will have to replace "most unlikely comic to ever be made into a TV series" from "Preacher" to "The Invisibles" in my mental listing.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Hahaha, man after seeing how soft they made the Walking Dead, I'll be impressed if they can make it darker than Supernatural.

Preacher is so gross, ultraviolent, and ultraoffensive that only Ennis's subsequent works top it.

One more note on the source article :

Tulip O'Hare, Jesse's beer-guzzling vampire ex-girlfriend, accompanies him on his quest for answers.

That's a typo, right? They're not going to try mashing those two characters together? right? Right? We're going to have Tulip O'Hare, ex-girlfriend and Cassidy, beer-guzzling vampire buddy as two separate and discrete entities.

*eyes narrow*

Right?!?

Oh god. They took out the best character already.

I've never heard of this I'll have to pick it up somewhere.

Is there any relation to that "Priest" movie that came out a while back? I'll admit, I haven't looked anything up yet, so I don't know if I'm accidentally offending anyone by making the assumption. While it wasn't a stellar movie, it had an interesting setting at least.

It's not related, but I don't think anyone would get offended, not a lot of people outside know who Garth Ennis is.