Preacher Television Series Will Be As Close To The Comics As Possible, Says Writer/Producer

While at SXSW this past weekend, writer/producer Evan Goldberg spoke to Collider about the upcoming television adaptation of Preacher that he is working on with, longtime friend and writing partner, Seth Rogen.Goldberg said that Garth Ennis, the comic book series’ co-creator and writer, is directly involved in early discussions about the project. He also said that, while some changes will need to be made, they are trying to stick as closely to the source material as possible.

“We just had a meeting with AMC and Garth Ennis, who’s the writer, and we all kind of seemed to agree that we’re gonna stay as true to the comic as we can.  We need to change some stuff but we’re not gonna change much, I hope.  We’re just gonna do a little more of the preamble instead of doing flashbacks and restructure how we dole out the information a little, but we’re gonna [do the] same characters, same story, same ending.  We’re gonna try to stick to Preacher as best we can.  We’re making it with Sam Catlin who did Breaking Bad, and so he might tell me I’m wrong about all of this and that the real way to do it is different because he’s much smarter and better at all this than I am.  But we’re gonna try to stick to what it is as best we can.”

Goldberg also explained why adapting Preacher as a television series is a better fit than trying to make it into a feature film.

“We’re beyond excited, we’ve tried to make it for 10 years.  The big difference is everyone else tried to make it a movie and it shouldn’t be a movie.  It should be an AMC show, that’s the proper way for it to get done… It’s too big; you can’t do that in a movie.  It’s just too big.  You’ve gotta learn the characters, it’s all about a love triangle and you need to grow with them and see the woman swayed one way or the other, and in a movie you just can’t accomplish all that.”

is a television adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Vertigo Comics series about a preacher, named Jesse Custer, who obtains the power of The Word, his girlfriend, Tulip, and his best friend, Cassidy, who is also a vampire. Together, they go on the hunt for an absent God.The Preacher television series is currently in pre-production at AMC.