AMC Is Taking Preacher To Pilot

With the loss of Breaking Bad and soon Mad Men, AMC is looking at a big hole in their schedule, one that shows like The Killing and Low Winter Sun haven’t quite been able to fill. While they have the ratings juggernaut that is The Walking Dead, they still need something that will be a buzz show, that will get a ton of attention and make a cultural impact. They’re betting that show will be Preacher.

Sources tell me that the network has ordered a pilot based on the classic Vertigo comic by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. In the comic Jesse Custer is a small town preacher who is torn by booze and sin and who finds himself the vessel for a strange entity – the child of a mating between an angel and a demon. Filled with immense power, including The Word of God, which makes anyone do whatever he says, Jesse goes hunting for the Lord Almighty, who has abandoned creation. He aims to make him pay for leaving his children behind. Joining Jesse on his journey is his ex-girlfriend Tulip, who is now a hit woman, and a hundred year old Irish vampire named Cassidy. Along the way they battle secret religious commandos, the retarded descendent of Christ, a guy who fucks meat and even each other.

The comic is profane and blasphemous, and if AMC takes it to series they’re showing a commitment to upping the R-rated quality of what we’ve seen on The Walking Dead. It isn’t so much that Preacher is hyper-violent – although it can be – but rather that it tackles hot-button religious issues with all the subtlety and grace of a loud wet fart in church.

Preacher has been out in the world of almost getting adapted for a while; it all started back in 1998 when Garth Ennis wrote a draft of a script and Kevin Smith tried to get Harvey Weinstein to make it. Along the way we’ve seen people like Rachel Talaly, DJ Caruso and Sam Mendes attached to direct. I don’t know who is attached to the TV series, but I hear the names are big and impressive.

The sprawling, road trip nature of the comic lends itself to TV more than movies in my opinion. I think AMC will take the show right to the edge (if it goes to series), and I wouldn’t be shocked to discover they shoot alternate, crazier versions for Netflix and home video. And of course going to series is the next big hump; this property has been floundering in adaptation for a lot of years, and there’s no guarantee this version will get any farther than previous ones.

Source: Badass Digest

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New Shows: Halt & Catch Fire and Turn

AMC announced today series orders for the scripted dramas Halt & Catch Fire and Turn. This is the first time the network has ordered two scripted series concurrently. Production on each is scheduled for 4th quarter 2013 with both expected to premiere on AMC in 2014.

Halt & Catch Fire
Set in the early 1980s, Halt & Catch Fire dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time. Their personal and professional partnerships are challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas’ Silicon Prairie. From AMC Studios, Halt & Catch Fire is created by Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers from a pilot directed by Juan Campanella (The Secret In Their Eyes). Jonathan Lisco has joined the series as showrunner and Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Rectify, Diner, Rain Man) and Melissa Bernstein (Breaking Bad and Rectify) from Gran Via Productions also serve as executive producers. The series stars Lee Pace (Lincoln, Pushing Daisies) as Joe McMillan, Scoot McNairy (Argo) as Gordan Clark, Mackenzie Rio Davis (Smashed) as Cameron Howe, Kerry Bishe (Argo, Red State) as Donna Clark, Toby Huss (Cowboys & Aliens) as John Bosworth and David Wilson Barnes (The Bourne Legacy, You Don’t Know Jack) as Dave Butler.

Turn
Based on the book Washington’s Spies, written by Alexander Rose, Turn is set in the summer of 1778 and tells the story of  New York farmer, Abe Woodhull, who bands together with a group of childhood friends to form The Culper Ring, an unlikely group of spies who turn the tide in America’s fight for independence. Turn, also from AMC Studios, was developed and written by Craig Silverstein (Nikita) who also serves as series showrunner. The pilot was directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes). Barry Josephson (Bones, Enchanted) from Josephson Entertainment is executive producer.  The series stars Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, King Kong, The Adventures of Tintin) as Abraham Woodhull, Kevin McNally (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) as Judge Richard Woodhull, Burn Gorman (The Dark Knight Rises) as Major Hewlett, Daniel Henshall (The Snowtown Murders) as Caleb, Seth Numrich (The Good Wife) as Ben Talmadge, Angus MacFadyen (Braveheart) as Robert Rogers, JJ Feild (Captain America: The First Avenger) as Major John Andre, Meegan Warner as Mary Woodhull and Heather Lind (Boardwalk Empire) as Anna Strong.

Source: AMC Greenlights Two New Scripted Series: Halt & Catch Fire and Turn.

Short Thoughts: The Walking Dead

So today I knocked Cormac McCarthy’s The Road off the old ‘Books To Read Before I Die’ list. Great story, great writing and great writing style.

But…

But the one overwhelming thought I am left with is that the folks on The Walking Dead know nothing- nothing- of what it truly means to be, y’know, the walking dead. They know nothing Jon Snow. Rick & Co need to suck it up and deal so fucking hard.

Short Thoughts: The Walking Dead 3×10

– Rick spends most of the episode wandering outside the gates in a state of semi-delirium. Where the walkers are. Nobody thinks they need to go rescue, or even just keep watch, over him. In this topsy-turvy reality the walkers also choose these several hours to completely avoid him, despite previously doing their level best to eat through the wires if someone so much as breathed on the fence let alone walked through it.

– Glenn, mate, you’re in a massive truck in a field full of hostiles. Why are you driving around them?! Run the buggers over already! GTA: Georgia State- Zombie Apocalypse Edition, goddamn…

– The Walking Dead is the new Game of Thrones, killing off people I was starting to like!

Walking Dead: Andrea Locates Her Brain

TV Guide threw up this wee morsel in their reader-requested scoops column:

Will Andrea try to save Daryl on The Walking Dead? — Josh (reader)
After Andrea finds out the truth about the Governor, don’t expect her to sit idly by. “Once she realizes her friends are in jeopardy, and that any harm has come to anybody that she cares for, she’s going to take action,” Laurie Holden says. “To see her friend Daryl not only alive, but captured by the man she’s been romantically entangled with is shocking. It’s her worst nightmare.”

Probably not  a massive revelation for fans of the comics, but for the rest of us it sounds like an overdue return to sanity for Andrea!

Source: TV Guide

 

The Walking Dead

AMC’s new promo for the second half of season 3 (well, the start  of the second half; it’s a pretty short promo tbh).

The show’s third showrunner has been announced as Scott Gimple- on the upside he’s been around for a while as exec-producer and has even penned a few episodes, on the downside he was responsible for the Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance script. Still, on the other upside, working with Nicholas Cage might just have given him the right sort of pizzazz to deal with crazy. Here’s hoping he can save AMC from itself.

The Walking Dead returns on the 10th February.

Tidbits

– Showtime have announced that two of their new dramas have been given full season orders. Ray Donovan (starring Live Schrieber) and Masters of Sex (starring Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan) will premiere sometime in the new year.

– HBO has commissioned an untitled pilot about 3 gay friends living in San Fransisco. Dear lord, please let it be nothing like the travesty that is Girls.

– For anyone living under a rock this past week, Glenn Mazarra has quit as showrunner of The Walking Dead. Not a good look AMC, get your shit together and start treating your talent right!

– Game of Thrones was this years most pirated tv show, followed by Dexter, How I Met Your Mother and  Big Bang Theory.

Tidbits

– Season 3 of Game of Thrones will see each episode receive around 10 minutes extra running time. Why HBO don’t just add that time up and stump for an extra episode is difficult to fathom- it would be interesting to know if GoT is being allowed to run overtime or if advertising slots (and therefore revenue) have been sacrificed to accommodate the new times…

– Misfits has been commissioned for a 5th series, although based on the tedious finale it looks to be heading the way of sister-show Skins in the completely diminished returns department.

-AMC have announced they will be reworking all of season 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead into black and white, a stunt they previously pulled for the pilot and aired as a special. The new b&w episodes are expected to air sometime in February.