AMC converts Preacher from pilot to series

US cable channel AMC has greenlit a full season of Preacher, which is based on a twisted 1990s comic book.

Sony Pictures Television and AMC Studios will coproduce the series, which Hollywood director Seth Rogen and his production partner, Evan Goldberg (This is the End, Superbad), developed for television through their Point Grey Pictures and alongside Neil Moritz’s Original Film.

Preacher was a highly successful comic book series in the nineties, which Garth Ennis and illustrator Steve Dillon created. AMC okayed a pilot last December, as TBI reported at the time.

The ten-part television series will follow conflicted small town Texas preacher Jesse Custer, who is inhabited by a mysterious entity that gives him highly unconventional powers and embarks on a journey to literally find God with his ex-girfriend and an acerbic Irish vampire.

AMC plans to launch the series midway through 2016, with Dominic Cooper (Agent Carter) playing the lead role. Ruth Negga (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Joseph Cassidy (This is England) round out the lead roles.

“Garth Ennis’s Preacher is, above all, about great characters – something we look for in all of our series,” said Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV. “The fact that it is also darkly funny, has some great supernatural elements, and takes us on an incredible adventure is just the icing on the cake.”

“This is the craziest thing ever and we can’t wait to move forward and work our asses off to make it the best it can be,” said Rogen and Goldberg in a statement.

Sam Caitlin will write and executive produce, with Rogen, Goldberg and Weaver EPing for Point Grey; and Moritz, Vivian Cannon and Ori Marmur from Original, and Ken Levin and Jason Netter, doing the same. Ennis and Dillon will be co-executive producers.

It was unclear whether SPT would distribute the series, as with previous AMC copro Breaking Bad, or if AMC Studios would take the IP.