IESB were invited among various other online entertainment representatives to an evening with Eva Mendes, Director Mark Steven Johnson and Ghost Rider himself, Nicolas Cage. Yeh, I know… Ghostrider. I've never been a huge fan, so I just wasn't jazzed about the movie, which from what I've seen so far, is going to be monumentally rubbish in a Daredevil kind of way. Having said that, I hope I'm wrong. Anyway, you might be wondering why I'm writing about it if I'm not interested? Well, further down the page, there's some Preacher news! Now THIS I'm jazzed about…

Mark Steven Johnson is involved with the HBO transitioning of Preacher from comic book to an hour long series.  "Mark is hoping for a six year run. He is hoping for guest directors including Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez to come and work on an episode. Johnson promises it will be 100% faithful if not completely identical to the original comic." 

We couldn't have it any other way surely! Kevin Smith could do a good job of it I'm sure… and Rodriguez, I have no doubt at all that this guy could nail it without hesitation. So far so good, I'm digging this Preacher stuff!

I skimmed past most of the GhostRider stuff to get to the juicy bits, and juicy they are!

"Preacher I have always wanted to do. Preacher is like, you know, it's the greatest but it's so difficult. And I love it more than anybody and I remember reading a script a while ago it was gonna go to film and I was like, oh, how do you make a two hour movie from Preacher?" amen to that Mark! "You can't do it. So, when I went into HBO I said very simply, here's the comic, there's seventy-five issues plus the four issue Saint of Killers, every issue in an hour. It's a six year show. And HBO, God bless them, went, cool" Sweet!  How much to we love HBO?

So, the one question I would have asked, got asked. What about Garth Ennis and to what extent will he be involved…

"Q: As the series kicks in, is Garth going to be there everyday if he wants to be?

MSJ: If he wants to be absolutely. My first meeting was yesterday, and Garth is in New York so he was on speaker phone and like all meetings when there's one person on the speaker phone you all go and stare at the speaker phone. But it was so great to talk to him and ask him questions, and as it always happens, with the creators, they're like, don't be beholden to the source material, I just did that cause, A, B, or C. They were like, do whatever you want. I was like, no, no, no, it's gotta be exactly that. So he's the one going, use your own thing. But, with Garth's help, I said to Garth, also tell me are there any stories you wanted to tell but weren't able to. Was there something that you wanted to do but didn't have time, I want to hear that too! We want to fill it out, we want to make it, a six year show, or above with a definite ending the way it does which is obviously, incredibly controversial. Again, nobody would have the balls to do this but HBO."

I'm utterly sold. This is a momentous day for me, and I'll be scuttling around with a boyishly gleeful smile on my mush all day long! I sincerely hope that in the six years (6 freakin year run!!! YES!) we see some of the 'Saint of Killers' backstory. Fingers crossed!

Check out the full article over at IESB. including the Ghostrider stuff.

So who else could guest direct? Tarantino? bit obvious but… any other ideas?