Television

AMC Ordering 'Preacher' Pilot

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By Russ Fischer

Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's comic series Preacher was crazy. Not just kinda violent, kinda weird, but full-on crazy. For example, it's got a character whose failed Kurt Cobain-emulating suicide attempt, leads to a grotesquely mangled face and the nickname "Arseface," none of which precludes him becoming a pop superstar. It features one antagonist whose sexual proclivities turn towards the nigh-unprintable extreme, and whose body is steadily chipped away over the course of the story.

Oh, and the lead character is a small-town Texas preacher whose best friend is a junkie Irish vampire, and who is possessed of a god-like power called Genesis. That power was born of the coupling between angel and demon, and allows him to command a person to do anything with absolute authority. Like "count all the sand on this beach," which leads one character to do exactly that. Oh, and the preacher, Jesse, wants to find God and fight him.

But if you're AMC, which needs something to follow Breaking Bad, full-on crazy might be just the thing. And so Preacher has reportedly been ordered to pilot at the company. And there's a big question that came up after the first announcement was made: Seth Rogen tweeted two statements that suggest he's got something to do with the adaptation.

Badass Digest has the report, citing a couple of anonymous sources.Preacher has been in development as a film for years, going back to '98. In the end, however, TV is probably the best place for it, because it's a story that sprawls in all directions. There are flashbacks and asides and embedded arcs that explain every character in great detail in addition to a story that is just as ambitious and broad in scope as it is gutsy and wild.

As crazy as Preacher gets, however, there's always a core set of themes, about family, friendship, and the preservation of morality in the face of pretty much the nastiest stuff you can imagine. That core prevents all the nutty stuff from totally overwhelming the storyline. The best parts of Preacher aren't the big whackadoo situations and setpieces, but the chapters that could come to life as bottle episodes of a TV series.

All of which is to say that if this is written and cast well, it could be the best method to bring Preacher to the screen.

Meanwhile, what does Seth Rogen have to do with Preacher? He said on Twitter,

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