Watchmen is out on DVD and Blu-Ray and I still can’t belive they actually made the damn thing. And made it in quite the manner that it was made, with a slavish and possibly misguided devotion to the source material. I thought Watchmen, if it ever made it to the screen, was going to be a watered-down, nearly unrecognisable piece of garbage. Some would argue that’s a good description of what actually did make it to the screen, but those people are terrible. Just terrible.
My point is that I never, ever thought a Watchmen movie would get made, and in fact if it hadn’t been it would have been one of the first entires in this series, where I look at comics properties which you probably aren’t going to see vying for competition with Wolverine: The College Years.
Not that you could really blame me for thinking they’d never make a movie out of it, because holy shit, Watchmen the graphic novel is so dense it’s practically a singularity. There’s stuff going on in every panel, most of the characters are severely unlikeable, the worst have massive personality problems, and the book is horrifically violent in a way that can’t be altered for movie audiences without losing a key element of what makes the book so great.
Which brings me to Preacher.
Who the Hell is That?
Preacher is a 66-issue comic series written by Garth Ennis, concerning Jesse Custer, a good ole boy from Texas who had an … interesting childhood, culminating in him being forced to be a Preacher in Louisiana. Until the day the disembodied spawn of an angel and a demon called “Genesis” merges with him, wiping out his town and giving him the ability to command people with his words. Which gives it that relatability most traditional superhero comics seem to lack.
He ends up teaming up with his former and once again current girlfriend Tulip O’Hare, a sexy blonde hitperson, and Cassidy, a 100 year old hard-drinking hard-living Irish vampire, and together they go in search of God Almighty Himself, to force him to explain why the world is such a horrible place.
This book looks down on High Concept.
What Makes Them So Special?
It’s John Wayne (who happens to look kinda like James Marsden) teaming up with the hottest most ass-kicking blonde in comics and Spike from Buffy, to fight an insane Patrick Stewart, and Clint Eastwood on steroids. It would the the most AWESOME film of ALL TIME.
Why It’ll Never Work
Other, more influential people than me have realised this over the years and tried to get Preacher made. Two seperate film companies have tried to get it off the ground, and an HBO series got so close to being made they were doing makeup tests for Arseface.
Those of you not familiar with the property may be beginning to understand why this keeps not getting made.
The most recent news, from much earlier this year, was that John August was writing a screenplay for Director Sam Mendes with Neil Moritz producing. I don’t think this one’ll get very far either.
Why? Because sooner or later the guy signing the cheques actually reads the comic, and shits his pants in horror. Everything that makes Preacher great is the very reason it can never be a mainstream movie. The religious themes. The mood shifts between horror and comedy which happen in the space of a panel. The incredibly crude sexual scenes and references. The constant, unending, horrific and awesome violence.
What We’ll have To Settle For Instead
It’s surprisingly similar in style in places to HBO Vampire series True Blood, that same mix of horror and humour which works so well if pulled off properly. But honestly- you want to see Preacher as a movie? Go watch every western ever made. That’s pretty much what Ennis (an Irishman) did before starting to write the series. Especially, watch The Wild Bunch, watch a couple of John Wayne films, particularly The Searchers and True Grit. And above all, watch Unforgiven. That’s Preacher.
If you want a superhero film the best we’re likely to get is the upcoming Jonah Hex, which is about a disfigured Civil War vet turned bounty hunter, which will reportedly feature quite a few supernatural elements. It stars Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex and Megan Fox as Megan Fox. And it’s another entry on the “holy shit, they made a [superhero name] film??” list. I strongly suspect Hollywood execs are just throwing darts at a board full of comics properties at this point.
I had no idea they were working on an HBO series for this… that would be the best thing. Ever.
It would have been. Pity it fell through. And as I said, I won’t belive this movie is getting made until I walk out of the theatre having seen it. Even halfway through I’ll be expecting the projector to blow up.
Don’t forget the guy who carves himself a woman out of various pieces of meat, and defiles her.
It’s funny, of all the storylines, “Salvation” is actually arguably the most filmable, if only because it’s a break from the main storyline where Jesse takes up duties as the sherrif of a small town. But it also has the Meat Man, who would have to be toned down significantly to even make it to screen.