Seth Rogen Talks Adapting Preacher for Television with Potential Changes

Seth Rogen talks adapting the controversial comic Preacher for TV

It’s been a long time coming for fans of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s cult comic series Preacher. Adaptations have been in the works multiple times over the past two decades, but we’ll finally be seeing one next year from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg on AMC.

Speaking with CraveOnline, Rogen talked about the process of adapting the controversial and very graphic series for TV, saying they want to keep fans of the comic guessing about some elements.

“We are changing the specifics of how the narrative is unfolding. A lot of the building blocks we are not changing, a lot of 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. And we have no interest honestly in just doing a literal page-to-page adaptation. It just seems like the most boring creative endeavor one could go on!”

Rogen went on to say they intend to address the various mini-series spin-offs of the main Preacher title, most of which focused on back stories of specific characters.

“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. The fact that it does go off into these other worlds and explore these other characters, I mean that’s something that we wholeheartedly intend on indulging in because it’s one of the best parts about the comic. Just the massive tapestry of f***ing weirdos. [Laughs.]”

Finally, Rogen teased the elephant in the room about the spirit of icon John Wayne, who makes many an appearance in the source material.

“I don’t know! [Laughs.],” Rogen said when asked who you even get to play the actor. “That’s a good question. Someone shrouded in shadow.”

“Preacher,” published between 1995 and 2000, tells the story of Jesse Custer, a small town Texas preacher who, nearly at his faith’s end, finds himself merged with a supernatural entity, Genesis, birthed from both an angel and a demon. Imbued with the word of God (the ability to make anyone obey his commands), Jesse hits the road, reunited with his ex-girlfriend, Tulip, and joined by a rowdy Irish vampire, Cassidy, to track down God himself and force him to explain why he abandoned his duties in Heaven.

Dominic Cooper leads the cast that also includes Joseph Gilgun as the vampire Cassidy, Ruth Negga as his gun-toting ex-girlfriend Tulip, Colletti as the kindhearted yet startling Arseface, W. Earl Brown as his father Sheriff Hugo Root, Lucy Griffiths as Emily Woodrow, an original character in the series and love interest of Jesse’s, and Elizabeth Perkins as Vyla Quinncannon, the owner of the local slaughterhouse and a semi-original character.

A Sony Pictures Television and AMC Studios co-production, “Preacher” will be produced by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen through their Point Grey banner, along with Neal Moritz’s Original Film. The pilot was written by Sam Catlin who will serve as the showrunner. The series will premiere its ten episode first season in 2016.