Preacher May Be Made Into A Movie

 

Variety is Reporting that Garth Ennis' comic series Preacher is getting set up to get turned into a movie.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Preacher.  I'm just worried how a big screen adaptation would work.  I've always envisioned Preacher working out best as a TV series, but after HBO passed on the series (they called it "too controversial"), I'd given up hope on ever seeing an adaptation of the comics.

 

Now there's this movie that's in the works, and I'm having a real hard time imagining how they're going to work this story into a two hour movie.  The series was pretty long, there's a lot of ground to cover here.  And the plot is bound to piss off a lot of right wingers and fundamentalists.  One possible good sign, maybe, is that Sam Mendes is set to direct the film.  If you've seen his adaptation of Road To Perdition, then you know he's pretty good at adapting comics into great movies, but I'm still not sure if this would exactly be his style.  Preacher is realyl violent and bloody, and it definitely has a South Western feel.  Maybe Robert Rodriguez would be a better directing choice.

 

I'm really worried about how the story will be adapted though.  Here's how variety is summarizing the plot of the story:

 

Created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, the graphic novel focuses on the preacher of a Texas town, who is struggling to get by and is driven only by his strong moral sense. When the city is decimated by an otherworldly force, he embarks on a journey across the country to take on the evil.

 

Actually, that's totally wrong.  Yes, Jesse Custer (the main character) is the Preacher of a texas town.  Yes, heis driven by a strong moral sense of right and wrong.  And yes, a supernatural force destroys the town he's in, leaving him the sole survivor.  But he definitely DOES NOT embark on a journey across the country to take on evil.  He embarks on a journey across the country to find God so that he can hold him accountable for all of the evil he allows to exist in this world.  His main goal is to kick God's ass for being a totally neglectful deity.  That's kind of the whole point of the story, he's a Preacher who is angry with God, so he goes to hunt him down.

 

If hollywood changes that to make the story less controversial, then this movie is going to suck worse than Batman and Robin.