Things will escalate in this first teaser trailer for PREACHER!

If you had asked me about it a few years ago, I would have told you that an adaptation of Preacher would never happen. And an adaptation of Preacher by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg? Lunacy! And yet, here we are as a couple of guys best known for stoner comedies, bring to the TV screen a highly controversial comic book which reads exactly like the type of thing that Hollywood TV execs do NOT ever sign off on.

For those of you not in the know, Preacher was a highly acclaimed comic book written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillion, published under DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Running for 75 issues from 1995 to 2000, it told the tale of Jesse Custer a take-no-crap smalltown Texan preacher who gains the power of the Word of God (able to command anybody to do anything) when he gets possessed by mysterious half angel/half demon entity named Genesis. This cues up a series of outlandish event which prompts Custer and his hitwoman ex-girlfriend Tulip and a hard drinking Irish vampire named Cassidy – eventually joined by a teen named Arseface who blew half his face off in a failed suicide tribute to Kurt Cobain – to set off on the most obscene, often hilarious, always shocking road trip to literally find God and hold him responsible for abandoning his creation. Along the way they encounter bestiality, murderous rednecks, the Saint of Killers and the halfwitted, inbred “pure” genetic descendant of Jesus. So no, I don’t think this is the type of story your granny will approve of.

Whether all of that actually makes it into the upcoming TV series is uncertain, though Rogen previously stated that TV studio AMC has given them way more leeway than they were expecting. That being said, the first trailer for the show dropped during last night’s AMC and it feels very un-Preacher. Don’t get me wrong, it looks good and I’m surprised at how much I don’t hate Dominic Cooper (Agent Carter, The Devil’s Double) in the role as Custer seeing as how I never thought he was a good pick, but it just looks a very normal Southern-fried, pot-boiler action-drama about a badass guy who happens to work for a church. There’s not a single hint of anything supernatural much less the way over the top shocking wackiness that earned the comic book such infamy (and the reader plenty of inappropriate guffaws). With one minor exception, nobody even smirks in here, and if you’ve read Preacher, you would know that the entire thing reads like a giant smirk to societal norms.

Check it out for yourself below.

So am I still buzzed to see this? Hell, yes! But I do need to see some more Preacher-ness from Rogen and Goldberg soon or I may start getting worried.

Preacher’s 10-episode first season is scheduled for release some time in mid-2016. Joining Cooper in cast is Ruth Negga (Agents of SHIELD) as Tulip, Joseph Gilgun (This Is Enfland, Misfits) as Cassidy and Ian Colletti (Phoebe In Wonderland) as Arseface.

 

Last Updated: November 2, 2015