After a successful pilot, Seth Rogen has confirmed that AMC have given the go-ahead for a 10-episode series of Preacher. “The beginning is nigh!!!” he tweeted, with a nod to Evan Goldberg, his co-writer on Superbad and This is the End, and producer Sam Catlin, who also worked on Breaking Bad.
Preacher – the story of a Texas preacher who loses his faith and goes on a mission to track down a missing God – was a cult hit in the 1990s in a long-runing Vertigo series from writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon. The AMC show will star Agent Carter’s Dominic Cooper as Reverend Jesse Custer, Ruth Negga (Agents of SHIELD, Misfits) as Tulip O’Hare, Jesse’s ex-girlfriend, Joe Gilgun (aka Woody from This Is England) as a boozy Irish vampire, True Blood’s Lucy Griffiths as Emily Woodrow, a church organ player and Ian Colletti as Eugene Root (better known to fans as Arseface).
Preacher is coming to AMC! @evandgoldberg @SamCatlin123! The beginning is nigh!!! pic.twitter.com/xVgqYrkEK9
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) September 9, 2015
In a slightly more cryptic earlier tweet, Rogen also posted a link to the Willy Nelson song Time of the Preacher…
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) September 9, 2015
Preacher is part of a growing trend for comic book adaptations on TV in the US. AMC’s succesful adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic has inspired its own spin-off Fear The Walking Dead; The CW are following Arrow and The Flash with new spinoff Legends of Tomorrow; CBS has launched Supergirl; ABC has Marvel’s Agent Carter and Agents of SHIELD; Fox has Gotham and Lucifer; and the Netflix corner of the Marvel universe that started with Daredevil is being expanded by Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and The Defenders.
