AMC's highly-anticipated Preacher series, based on the 1990s comic book of the same name, finally has a release date.
The network made the announcement that Preacher will debut on May 22, right after the midseason finale of Fear the Walking Dead. For those who may miss the pilot episode the first time around, it will air again on May 29, with subsequent episodes following on June 5 at 9 p.m. EDT and every Sunday after that.
The basis for the Preacher TV series is a dark supernatural Vertigo comic book series that follows the adventures of Jesse Custer, a preacher from West Texas. However, Custer gets possessed by Genesis, a supernatural creature that is half-angel and half-demon, with the result of that incident destroying Custer's church and congregation.
This drives Custer to travel across the U.S. in a literal search for God, who went missing after Genesis made his appearance. As he wanders, he learns more about his powers, which allows him to command people just by speaking to them.
The Preacher comic book took a lot of influence from movie Westerns and even occasionally included the Western actor John Wayne as a recurring ghost character. The story also delved into DaVinci Code territory, with the premise that blood relatives of Jesus still walk the Earth.
However, the TV series will take some liberties to create something new and surprising.
"No, we are changing the specifics of how the narrative is unfolding," Preacher executive producer Seth Rogen said to Crave Online. "A lot of the building blocks we are not changing, a lot of characters we're keeping, but we want to make a show that if you're a fan of the comic, you don't know what to expect. And we have no interest honestly in just doing a literal page-to-page adaptation. It just seems like the most boring creative endeavor one could go on!"
Evan Goldberg serves as co-executive producer for the 10-episode first season of Preacher. Dominic Cooper stars as Custer, along with co-stars Joseph Gilgun, Ruth Negga, Ian Colletti and W. Earl Brown.
AMC also released posters promoting the series' spring premiere:
