As Hollywood continues to mine comic-book stores for material, more high-profile filmmakers are getting in on the act. According to The Hollywood Reporter, director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) has signed on to direct Columbia Pictures’ adaptation of Preacher, a supernatural comic book created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon. This is actually the second comic adaptation for Mendes, who directed DreamWorks’ 2002 big-screen version of Road to Perdition, a graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner.
Published under DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, Preacher tells the story of Jesse Custer, a preacher in a small Texas town who is accidentally possessed by the supernatural creature named Genesis during an incident that killed his entire congregation. Genesis, the product of the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon, is an infant composed of both pure goodness and pure evil, making Custer one of the most powerful beings in existence. Driven by a strong sense of right and wrong, Custer goes on a journey across the U.S. attempting to find God, who abandoned Heaven the moment Genesis was born. The four-time Eisner Award-winning series ran from 1995 to 2000, producing 75 issues.
The Preacher movie will be produced by Neal Moritz (I Am Legend) through his Sony-based Original Film, along with Kickstart Prods.’ Jason Netter (Wanted). Exec producers are Ken Levin and Ori Marmur. Moritz and Netter are also producing Columbia’s adaptation of the Garth Ennis comic The Boys.
