Preacher Miniseries - HBO

Books, comics, TV, music
1

From Newsarama: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=92508

I’m excited at the possibilities. The casting will be very important because there are so many well defined characters. HBO is pretty good about finding underrated talent (Oz, The Wire, Rome) for its miniseries. I don’t think Preacher needs big names as much as it will need quality acting and a really good screenplay.

For years, fans have been saying that if Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion’s Preacher were to come to any screen, only HBO could do it justice.

Apparently, DC, Vertigo, Ennis, Dillion and whatever gods watch over Time Warner agree.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Preacher will launch on HBO as a series, adapted by Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider, Daredevil) and directed by Howard Deutch. Johnson and Deutch will executive produce along with Michael De Luca, George Agusto, Chris Bender and JC Spink.

I thought the following was cool:

The series was created by Irish-born writer Garth Ennis and British artist Steve Dillon, who will serve as co-executive producers. Ken F. Levin, who reps the duo, also will serve as co-exec producer.

Didn’t know about this:

There have been several attempts to bring the comic to the screen, whether big or small, but nothing stuck. A movie version, to have been produced by Kevin Smith’s View Askew, among others, got to the casting stage, with James Marsden attached for the title role and a reported budget of $25 million.

The project reunites Johnson with Deutch; Johnson wrote “Grumpier Old Men,” which Deutch directed. Deutch’s directing credits include TV’s “Gleason,” the pilot for “Melrose Place” and the 1986 film “Pretty in Pink.” He is repped by ICM.

2

I don’t know about this one. The ridiculous over the top violence worked in the comic because it was practically cartoony in its depiction. I’m not sure how that would translate. Plus, as much as I loved the series when it first came out, a lot of it hasn’t aged that well.

3

Exciting!

Is it a straight adaptation or using the character for new stories?

4

Unfortunately, it’s Mark Steven Johnson, one of the worst hacks in hollywood, so this can’t help but be terrible

5

I remember watching an interview with Sam Jackson where they asked him who he would like to play in a movie. He said either the Silver Surfer or the Saint of Killers.

Samuel L. Jackson playing the Saint Of Killers would make my balls explode with glee.

6

The people involved is a little bit worrying. I’m glad that HBO is doing it, and they don’t tend to fuck up with their material too often or too badly. But Mark Steven Johnson? Eeeeehhhhh…

7

I’m a lot more worried about Howard Deutch than Mark Steven Johnson. The guy who directed “Pretty in Pink” and “Grumpier Old Men” is doing “Preacher”??!?

8

I would watch a Preacher series with the cast of Grumpier Old Men, as long as it doesn’t turn into an animated series while Dillon’s in any way attached to it. His art was the worst thing about the whole series.

9

Sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of Clint Eastwood.

10

I would be more interested in this if HBO didn’t totally kill Carnavile just as it was getting started.

11

Now that was a series which had the secret/reveal/secret pacing worked out really well. It will always bug me how he had the rest of the show plotted.

Clint walking around as an unstoppable killing machine in a duster? Welcome to 1968. I love SLJ but that guy needs Crowe-level rage, only not from the prima donna himself.

12

He also did a Tales From the Crypt episode

http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Preacher/MSJPreacher.html

NRAMA: I love many of Howard Deutch’s films, especially the John Hughes ones, but I think many fans were confused by the announcement of his involvement.

MSJ: First, it is not decided whether I’m going to direct it, if Howard’s going to direct it or if we’re going to have someone else direct it. That was a bit of jumping the gun. Howard and I were talking about that again this morning. We’re not sure yet. We have to get that far. This is all still preliminary. I still have to write the pilot and if we go ahead and shoot it, there’s a chance I might do it or Howie might do it or someone else might do it. People assumed that since Howie has done a lot of television. But that hasn’t been decided yet. Again TV is different from film in so many different ways and Howie’s experience with HBO is that he won an award doing a Tales From the Crypt for them, which a lot of people don’t know.

NRAMA: I didn’t know that.

MSJ: Yeah, he actually did a Tales From the Crypt that starred Demi Moore.

NRAMA: Oh! With Jeffrey Tambor. I love that one!

MSJ: See? [laughs] Isn’t it amazing how one episode can change your opinion on someone? A lot of people don’t realize he did that and won a Cable Ace for it. He’s done very different things as I have too. So I understand people’s confusion at first thinking, “Is this going to be Preacher lite?” It’s not. It’s going to be exactly the comic book. We had our first meeting with Garth Ennis on the phone and Garth Ennis was the one saying, “You don’t have to be so beholden to the comic. Some things we just did…because. There are other ways to go.” It’s funny to hear him say something like that. But that’s usually the case. Creators say stuff like, you can add to it, you can take away from it, you can try something different. But I made it very clear to him and to HBO that this is a series based on one of the greatest comic series of all time. Therefore you don’t want to stray from it, you want to make it exact and thank God for HBO, they’re the only place I could think of that could do it.

13

I loved the first few books of Preacher (the compilations), but I felt like the story meandered really badly after awhile. It seemed like Ennis just didn’t want to end it but had also run out of ideas. Hopefully HBO can fix that–I have a lot of faith in them because their track record is stellar (Rome, Sopranos, The Wire)–but if it’s an open ended series like The Sopranos then I fear it may have the same problems as the comics.

14

Reading the interview, I’m pretty worried that they’ll be far too married to the source material. Ennis is telling these guys it’s okay to change stuff, but Johnson’s talking about issue for issue, panel for panel recreations. Preacher may have been cutting edge as a comic when it came out, but as someone who only read it recently, it looses a lot of impact if you’ve read lots of other Vertigo books before hand. Some of it comes off as pretty stupidly over the top and shocking without purpose. There’s a good show here, but it requires some revision.

15

You know the comic did end though, right? I’d assume HBO is sticking to that. There’d be no reason to tie the show to the Preacher story/license in the first place if you were planning on drastically reinventing it.

16

Back to life, though as a full series and moved from HBO to AMC. I really hope this happens!

17

I dunno about that move. HBO and the other premium channels would be capable of the full on gonzo Preacher requires for a faithful adaptation. AMC is certainly up to putting out good TV, but I’m not sure they’re willing to go as far. Though, admittedly, it might conceivably benefit from a bit more restraint.

18

The Saint of Killers alone would get the show an R rating in a movie. Throw in the comic’s version of Jesus and I have no idea how they’ll pull it off on AMC.

19

AMC was certainly willing to go pretty far with Walking Dead - I never would have imagined that there’d be a TV show with so much explicit gore - it doesn’t feel like they needed to compromise for TV at all, at least in terms of violence. Of course, other adult content has always been more difficult for American TV to incorporate.

Agree that the show could benefit from some restraint. It hasn’t aged very well. Then again, it’s still a hell of a lot better than Ennis’s current work.

20

While there are certainly gory bits of Preacher, it’s also rife with fairly extreme sexual content and other potentially offensive themes and content and that’s what I’d be much more skeptical of seeing translated to an AMC show.