Ahead of the premiere this Sunday, AMC has released the gory first five minutes (well, four and change) of the pilot episode of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s take on the controversial DC Vertigo comic series, Preacher.
It kicks off with a rather trippy “outer space” set sequence, charting the arrival of Genesis (the all-powerful offspring of a demon and an angel) to Earth. The entity possesses an African preacher in the middle of his sermon, and the poor chap believes himself to be chosen as God’s prophet. Unfortunately for him, Genesis doesn’t agree, and he promptly explodes.
We then cut to our main character, Dominic Cooper’s Jesse Custer, as he awakens after what looks to be a heavy night on the sauce. He makes his way to his church (stopping to fix the hilariously altered welcome sign), completely unaware of the insane course of events that are about to transpire.
This is very different to the way the comic begins, but at the same time it brilliantly captures the spirit of Garth Ennis’ bonkers writing, so fans shouldn’t have too much of a problem with the changes.
Preacher is set to premiere on Sunday, May 22nd at 10:00pm ET/PT via AMC, and you can check out our review of the first four episodes right here.