I Never Thought This Would Happen: Preacher Gets a Pilot

This is something that I never thought would happen: AMC has picked up Seth Rogen’s Preacher TV Series for a pilot episode.

I cannot described to you how awesome I WANT this to be.

Pipeline

Of course, Preacher has been in the pipeline in one way or another for years. I remmeber at one point James Marsden was attached to star as Jesse Custer in a movie version some years back.

Seth Rogen has been talking about bringing the movie to TV for the past couple of years and whilst I was excited by the prospect, I never actually thought he’d be able to do it.

Why? Because Preacher had the potential to offend a lot of people.

In modern times, I didn’t any TV station would ever take a risk with this show, but it seems that AMC is at least prepared to give a chance.

Changes

I find this worrying. It makes wonder whether AMC have demanded the original story be watered down to be more acceptable for TV viewing.

Of course, any TV adaptation will invariably be different from the original material. AMC’s Walking Dead has proven that this can be successful (though in my opinion, the comic book is still better).

TV

The show will be developed for TV by Sam Catlin (of Breaking Bad notoriety) and Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, the latter of which have slightly put my fears at ease.

“Preacher has been our favorite comic since it first came out,” Rogen & Goldberg said. “Garth Ennis is one of our idols and it’s an incredible honor to be working on this. We promise we won’t make too many dick jokes and ruin it.”

“Every once in a while you find a project where all the elements line up beautifully. With ‘Preacher,’ it starts with a bold, compelling, and thought-provoking comic book series from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and a whole lot of fans who already know Jesse Custer, Cassidy, and Tulip,” said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s executive vice president of original programming, production and digital content. “Add to that the passionate and talented Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Sam Catlin, an incredible producing team in Neal Moritz, the Original Film team and our good friends at Sony Pictures Television, and we have everything we need to be VERY excited to move forward on ‘Preacher.’”

Regarding the TV show, Preacher writer the great Garth Ennis stated: “Steve Dillon and I are extremely pleased to know AMC has taken ‘Preacher’ to pilot. We have had an ongoing voice in the efforts of the writers whom Sony TV and Original Film entrusted with this project, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Sam Catlin, and have been most gratified that they continue to include us, and that they have tackled the project with the type of unwavering commitment and courage needed to present the material as Steve and I intended. This has been a long time coming, but that it continues apace, and with the chance to be delivered episodically, gives ‘Preacher’ an opportunity to be seen in its best possible medium, not previously possible. And many thanks indeed to Ken Levin and Neal Moritz for their never flagging commitment to ‘Preacher,’ and for never giving up well past the point when I myself grew skeptical — we have principally gotten to where we are today because of Neal and Ken.”