Television shows based on comic books seem to be the hot ticket for networks these days, but sometimes if the show deviates from the source material too much, fans are quick to send it to ratings hell. In a recent interview, Seth Rogen (‘This Is the End‘, ‘Superbad’), who is part of the creative team to bring the comic series ‘Preacher’ to the small screen, seemed to hint that the overall story of the anti-hero would be left intact. Now, that isn’t sounding quite like the case after all.
The show is still in the pilot phase and hasn’t been picked up as a series just quite yet. As Rogan reveals:
“We’re still in the writing phase and we’re signing on to direct the pilot if it gets picked up to get made. [AMC wants the script] probably sooner than they’ll get it (laughs). We really have to shape the whole series to some degree before you start writing the pilot, and we really want to change some of the ideas, not just to change them, but to expand on them and emphasize some and deemphasize others, and to shape some things that aren’t that well shaped, and to answer some questions that aren’t answered and also, I honestly want to make it so that if you have read the comics that you don’t know what to expect.
It’s pointless just to make a literal interpretation of the comics, if you want that experience you can go read the comics, so we’ve had to do a lot more work than I expected before we could actually start writing the pilot, honestly. We kind of have to shape the whole series in a weird way and think like, ‘Oh, what season would this character come in? When would you fist introduce his guy? Where does this go? Why is this guy here’ So that’s kind of what we’re doing now is shaping almost the whole series.”
I am all behind little changes from the source material. It has worked on ‘The Walking Dead’, but I’m also a little worried that they might lose the spark that made the comic what it was. However not much sounds like it can be set in stone yet as their overall script is still evolving:
“What’s amazing is talking to Sam, it’s like then some idea might come up in two months, we’ll do three episodes and some writer will have an idea and we’ll throw out the bible and completely do something else. Like we’ve famously seen on Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul was supposed to die at the end of the first season and they just liked him so they kept him around. And [Sam] was saying how Mike Ehrmantraut’s character was originally hired because they couldn’t get Bob Odenkirk one day and they just needed a guy, and then they liked him and he became one of the instrumental parts of the series. So that’s really interesting to hear, just how fluid it can be as well.”
Are you OK with changes from the source material? Does the lack of a set in stone overall arc have you worried or comforted that they are still making changes? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Collider
