If you’re still pinching yourself that Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s barmy, violent comic series Preacher is actually coming to our screens, this new clip launched by AMC’s Twitter should help it feel a little more real. Click here to watch it.
This footage majors on Preacher’s moll, Ruth Negga’s Tulip O’Hare, who finds herself in entirely the wrong carpool. An unknown assailant wants a map but ends up paying for it with at least a chunk of his ear. It’s violent, crunching and offers the most spectacular use of a corn field since the beginning of Interstellar.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Negga plays second fiddle to Dominic Cooper as the titular man of godlessness. Rev. Jesse Custer is a preacher in name only: the faith has long gone, replaced by an unquenchable thirst for bloody retribution. Also beefing up this Southern stew is Joe Gilgun as the Irish vampire Cassidy, W. Earl Brown as Sheriff Hugo Root, and Tom Brooke as the angel Fiore. Oh yes, and Ian Colletti as the "unfortunate” Arseface.
It’s strange to think that Preacher was once earmarked as a Sam Mendes project. It’s hard to imagine the man behind recent 007 outings, American Beauty and Jarhead feeling his way around its unique tone and bloody mayhem, and sure enough it ended up defeated him. “It’s quite difficult thing to balance,” he had since explained, "more of a Southern Gothic with elements of the fantastic in it. My strong suspicion is someone will come along who has a really good take on it.”
So it looks. We’ll see for ourselves when Preacher debuts on May 22 in the US. A UK air date is still to be confirmed.