Seeing as how we were responsible for getting a new round of "Preacher is an HBO miniseries" rumors going, we decided we would go straight to the horses mouth and get the skinny from writer Garth Ennis who says: NO GO. Those brother's cousin stories have been refuted by "sources" at other places, but this is as definitive as it gets.

"There's been a steady buzz," of interest, he says, but there is no TV show in production. "I think I would know if it had gone that far. Someone at HBO likes it and they may have mentioned this to other people but in terms of anything solid, there's nothing at all."

Ennis did say that he's looking forward to THE BOYS, his new creator-owned book with Darick Robertson due from Wildstorm later this year, which he thinks will cause some comment. He also confirmed he's working on a project created by John Woo at Virgin Comics. So there may be no HBO series in his future, but he is a busy, busy boy.

http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/2006/06/ennis_no_preacher_tv_show.html

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Newsarama has posted a new interview with Mark Steven Johnson in which he talks about his upcoming Preacher series at HBO. The interview covers... That Grumpy Old Men director Howard Deutch may not be directing Preacher. That besides adapting the 66 issues of Preacher and the Saint of Killers miniseries, the TV series will also adapt Preacher one-shots like Good Ol' Boys and Tall in the Saddle. The possibility of using Garth Ennis' unused Preacher ideas for the TV series That he will be using the Digital Intermediate Process to create the look and color palette for the series That he's hoping to do 12 episodes of Preacher a season for HBO Speaking of the budget for Preacher episodes "it's not something you make on the cheap." That the content level for Preacher TV series will be TV-MA or higher if possible

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iF: I know you have been working on PREACHER for HBO and that you said before it is going to be faithful to comic. Can you give us an update on the status of the series? MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: Things are moving ahead and great. I actually already wrote the pilot and [HBO] wanted to me write a bible on how the first season would go and I did that. There was a big shake-up at HBO recently and we weren’t sure if we were still on the bill, but things are still looking really good. It has been a dream of mine to bring this comic to television and make the series exactly faithful to the fans of the comics who loyally follow the book. iF: So will be seeing the same stories from the comic book in the series? MSJ: Well there would be nothing new to add if we did that so [PREACHER creator] Garth [Ennis] and I have been creating new stories for the series. I love the book so much and I was telling Garth that he has to make the stories we are coming up with as comics because I want to see them. iF: Obviously HBO has some openings with DEADWOOD, ROME and CARNIVALE off the schedule and it seems like a natural fit with those. MSJ: Yes. They talked about making it into a movie originally and I didn’t want that to happen because it had to be a series. It wouldn’t work as a one-shot movie. Obviously with the violence and extreme imagery of the comic and what we will be bringing to the series it had to be HBO. iF: Can you give me any idea into the casting for PREACHER? I know some fans think BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’s Katee Sackhoff would be a great Tulip. MSJ: But she’s on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA … iF: Ah but it is ending! MSJ: Oh yeah, she’s really great and I love her character, but we have really talked about unknowns and not anyone that has baggage or any movies or whatnot and but with maybe some cameos of people who really love the series coming in and making an appearance. We want three real people that the audience can connect with that doesn’t have any prior baggage to get hooked to. One of the things that I love about the cast of LOST is that virtually all of them are unknowns and because no one had seen them before, there wasn’t a typecast baggage to go along with them. I am hoping to do the same thing with PREACHER.

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Comics Continuum spoke to Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider, Daredevil), who says that his adaptation of Garth Ennis' "Preacher" won't be happening at HBO. "We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going," Johnson said. "But the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point! "It was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word. They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I've learned my lesson on that front and I won't do it again. So I'm afraid it's dead at HBO."

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"I've heard someone is in the process of getting the rights to turn it into a feature film. I hope that happens. But I hope it happens as a series of movies as one movie couldn't do it justice. I really love that story and I dedicated a lot of my time to honor Garth's work. But it wasn't meant to be."

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Preacher fans take heart: There is life after HBO. Two months after it was revealed the cable network had passed on a TV drama based on the Garth Ennis-Steve Dillon comic, The Hollywood Reporter has word that Columbia Pictures has picked up the rights to the popular Vertigo series. Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition, American Beauty) will direct. Neal Moritz and Jason Netter, who are adapting Ennis’ The Boys for Columbia, also will produce Preacher. No writers have been attached. The property has circled Hollywood for years. Before the planned HBO series was announced in 2006, Kevin Smith had toyed with producing a big-screen adaptation starring James Marsden. Preacher, which ran for 66 issues from 1995 to 2000, helped to define DC’s Vertigo imprint.