Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher graphic novels follow the story of – you guessed it! – a Preacher, one possessed by the spirit of the offspring of an angel and a demon, as he and his vampire friend gallivant around the US.

We’re going to be honest here, we haven’t finished Preacher yet.

Suffice to say that it’s a well-written, supernatural, weird-but-in-that-good way comic series and it may be coming to a theater near you, if new reports can be trusted anymore than the dozens of reports from years ago that this was going to happen…

From yesterday’s Variety:

Sam Mendes will direct a bigscreen adaptation of the supernatural graphic novel “Preacher” for Columbia Pictures.

Created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, graphic novel focuses on the preacher of a Texas town, who is struggling to get by and is driven only by his strong moral sense. When the city is decimated by an otherworldly force, he embarks on a journey across the country to take on the evil.

Supernatural project is a departure for Mendes, who is best known for tackling suburban angst in such films as “American Beauty” and the upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet starrer “Revolutionary Road.”

And this from AICN in 1998:

I don’t know if you got this already, but I was taking a look at the latest Variety, and there’s a big Storm Entertainment ad with the Preacher movie as the first project noted as “in pre-production”. Kevin Smith is the executive producer, Rachel Talalay is listed as director, and it says that the casting will be announced prior to MIFED 98 - that I believe is at the beginning [sic] of november. So, stay tuned.

Sam Mendes taking on a serious supernatural comic book film might be interesting, but we’re not holding our breath.