Preacher has been battling to reach the screen in some form since the late ’90s, when Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon‘s controversial, critically praised comic series was still a new kid on the block. Now, years after Kevin Smith and Sam Mendes and Mark Steven Johnson tried and failed to produce big screen and small screen versions, the infamous series is finally arriving as a show on AMC.
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Sam Catlin are behind this incarnation. Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, and Joseph Gilgun are playing the story’s central heroes. And now, the first trailer for the series is here. Just be careful – people who associate with Preacher tend to get struck by lightning if they ever step near a church again.
Based on the seminal ’90s Vertigo comic series written by Ennis and drawn by Dillon, Preacher follows Jesse Custer (Cooper), a minister in a small Texas town who finds himself possessed by the unholy spawn of an angel and a demon. Now gifted with “the word of God,” which forces others to do whatever he says, Jesse embarks on a quest to confront God Himself, who has abandoned His Creation, and make Him pay. Jesse’s allies include an Irish vampire named Cassidy (Gilgun) and his old gunslinging girlfriend, Tulip (Negga). His enemies include the Catholic Church, mysterious government operatives, and the immortal “Saint of Killers,” released from heaven to hunt this rogue preacher down.