For almost five years now, we’ve followed the (lack of) development on the Preacher adaptation, a property that almost made its way to becoming a live-action series on HBO, later to become a film directed by Sam Mendes. That didn’t happen and the last we heard on the project, from a year and half ago, came from D.J. Caruso (I Am Number Four, Eagle Eye) confirming he would direct the film. Since then it’s been nothing but silence.
Neal Moritz is producing Preacher, a project that represents one of many on his production slate, and while visiting the set of Total Recall last fall we had the chance to catch up with him and fellow producer Toby Jaffe to talk about some of their other projects, including Preacher.
The pair are producing Len Wiseman’s Total Recall, but are planning to re-team for another film in the pipeline, titled The 8th Voyage of Sinbad. For fans of Sinbad anxious for a new adventure, that project is seemingly even further away from being realized than Preacher, according to what Moritz told me while spending time with him and Jaffe (read our Total Recall set visit report).
Can you tell us where we are with that?
“We are developing a script, it’s called the The 8th Voyage of Sinbad, so it’s kind of like the voyage that’s never been written about. So it’s something we really would like to do, we just haven’t got the script to the point where we are ready to make it yet.”
Who’s writing it?
“Right now, (laughs), right now we don’t have anybody writing it. We’re deciding we want to go in. There’s been a lot of movies obviously, Pirates and Prince of Persia, and so we have to be careful that we’re not treading on same territory.”
Can you talk about Preacher?
“Preacher is something that we have a script that we really like that we’re developing further. That’s something we’re very interested in.”
Preacher was a successful comic series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon that tells the story of Reverend Jesse Custer and how he became host to an angel-demon hybrid entity known as Genesis, a creature as powerful as God. The controversial story follows Custer as he tracks down God with the help of his girlfriend and a vampire to find out why he left Heaven. The 8th Voyage of Sinbad is a much more family-friendly tale.
For more from the producers, read our complete Total Recall set visit interview with Jaffe and Moritz.
Total Recall stars Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Nighy, Ethan Hawke, John Cho and Bokeem Woodbine. It is directed by Len Wiseman off a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback.
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Total Recall opens in theaters August 3, 2012.
