Preacher May Still Have a Prayer!!

It seems that there still may be life yet in Garth Enis and Steve Dillon comic book "Preacher." Columbia Pictures has hired "Road to Perdition" director Sam Mendes to bring the 75 issue comic to the big screen! Variety reports that Neal Mortiz and Jason Netter will produce while Ken Levine and Ori Marmur will serve as executive producers.

Sam Mendes is a perfect choice for Preacher and hopefully Columbia Pictures gives Mendes enough control to give the comic it's due. Mendes is a great director and has previously done a perfect job adapting the graphic novel "Road to Perdition" to film, soI put full faith that Mendes will deliver with a delightful conversion.

The Preacher follows Jesse Custer a pastor of a small town Texas preacher who is possessed and accidentally murders his entire congregation. Custer is possessed by a supernatural being named Genesis, who is a unnatural coupling of pure good and pure evil, with powers that can rival God. Custer sets out across America driven by a powerful sense of right and wrong pursuing to actually find God. Along the way he learns the strength of his powers and makes some friends while tackling various dilemma's and enemies while discovering the creation of the supernatural being within him.

The Preacher has gone through some bad stints with green lights that have dimmed before. Electric Entertainment originally had the film rights to Preacher and have danced around and kept the film in development hell from 1998 to 2005. Kevin Smith was onced atached to produce the film with James Marsden starring as Jesse Custer. More recently Preacher was being adapted for a series on HBO, but the studio felt that what it was too dark for television and aborted the project. The HBO series seemed like a perfect way to bring Preacher to screen, considering each episode would be a full issue of the comic. Giving the show at least a 75 episode story arc to start with.

Now with Columbia Pictures producing and Sam Mendes attached to direct, things are looking pretty damn good. I still would hope that this will be setup as a multiple picture deal. One film just would not do Preacher any justice and I would raather they just left it alone. Regardless, let's cross our fingers that it actually happens!

Thoughts on Sam Mendes directing Preacher? Does a single feature film work for Preacher? Who would you cast as Jesse Custer?