Son Of A Preacher Man

Fresh from a second round of superhuman antics as frontline mutant crusader, Cyclops, in Bryan Singer's X-Men 2, James Marsden is all set to jump into the lead role of another hot comic property. According to MTV, Marsden will star as Preacher, a less than peace-loving padre and star of DC Comics' eponymously titled cult comic. Not one for the kiddies, Preacher centres around a disillusioned priest who, after falling from his faith, goes searching for God on the road along with the well-armed Tulip and an Irish vampire named Cassidy. Unable to shoot pink concussion blasts from his eyes like Marsden's X-Men character, Preacher has a nifty talent he calls the Word of God, whereby he can compel people to do whatever he wants. Handy. While keen to get started, Marsden has encountered a few hurdles as the film tries to get off the ground, but remains commited to donning the dog-collar at the earliest possible opportunity. "Right now it's in one of those weird Hollywood states where financing is still kind of questionable at this point," he told MTV. "But they keep threatening to start in June, so if they do it, I'm thrilled to be a part of it." Not afraid to dive into the more complicated theological and interpersonal themes, Preacher is hardly CGI-fodder and this sensitivity to the human element is apparently what caught Marsden's eye. "I [like] the maturity of the relationship between Tulip and the Preacher, the mix between the issues that it deals with." "I also like the bravery in Garth Ennis' writing. He’s not afraid to tackle the hypocrisies of modern religion and things like that. It's really heavy stuff. It'll be interesting how much of middle America is gonna migrate towards [those] kind of themes [in a movie]. But I definitely believe in it."