In 2014 AMC has announced their plan to bring on the small screen Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Western dark comic Preacher. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Sam Catlin were chosen to produce the TV show. But only two years later we have a look at what they've came up with.
The live-action adaptation of the comic book series Preacher is in development and the first trailer has been released.
The trailer is short but gives some insight of how the series will look like. It starts with a kid asking Jesse Custer (the Preacher) to hurt his abusive father. But the first reaction to the question is a highlighting of the action's nature, which is sinful. "You know it's a sin just to ask me that?" Jesse Custer answers to the kid.
The character of the preacher seems to resemble the comic series, where the preacher is an ambiguous entity, both pure goodness and pure evil. Even if in the first instance Jesse Custer mentions the sinful aspect of what the kid is asking, then he continues "how bad d'you want him hurt?". Afterwards, a series of sequences depict a dark and violent unfolding of events.
Back in summer, Rogen made a statement that sounded like the TV series won't come out close to the comic books as it was previously planned by HBO:
"No, we are changing the specifics of how the narrative is unfolding. A lot of the building blocks we are not changing, a lot of the characters we're keeping, but we want to make a show that if you're a fan of the comic, you don't know what to expect. "
Will the Preacher adaptation resemble the original source?
Maybe the series won't follow the exact steps of the comic books, but it is clear that the producers want to stick to the original source as much as possible. Rogen has talked about the difficulty of portraying characters that are quite controversial, and they will not be able to bring all of them in the show:
"I mean, there's some things that even Garth will argue, is quick to admit that we probably should not even attempt to put on television. There's some characters, we're talking about maybe we combine these two into one person. But to us, the tangential element is one of our favorite things"¦ That's something we wholeheartedly intend on indulging in because it's one of the best parts about the comic."
He also expressed his enthusiasm about the unfolding of the project.
"It's coming along great! The writers are in Los Angeles in a big room, writing away, trying to plan the series. We're trying to plan the whole season before we start shooting and writing it. So our hope is to start filming in February and I think we'll start airing sometime next summer, basically," he told to Carve.
The trailer aired on Sunday during The Walking Dead and it looks promising. Even if we were indulged into the idea of a different scenario, it doesn't seem to deviate too much from the comics.
The official synopsis is also encouraging, and by now the producers seem to honor the source material while creating a really interesting story:
“Based on the twisted and popular ’90s comic book franchise of the same name, Preacher, created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, is the story of Jesse Custer – a conflicted Preacher in a small Texas town who is inhabited by a mysterious entity that allows him to develop a highly unconventional power. Jesse, his ex-girlfriend, Tulip, and an Irish vampire named Cassidy embark on a journey to, literally, find God.” (ComicBookMovie).
The first trailer is quite impressive and will probably appeal to the fans of the legendary comic book series, but will also draw the attention of a large audience. The production is in development and it is said to be aired in the summer of 2016.
What do you think about this adaptation?
