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Screen Gems Bringing TokyoPop's Priest to the Big Screen

by Alex Billington
December 17, 2008

Screen Gems is developing a big screen adaptation of the TokyoPop comic Priest and has hired Scott Charles Stewart to direct. Priest is a horror western set in a world ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampire. The story follows a warrior priest who turns against the church to track down a murderous band of vampires who have kidnapped his niece. The screenplay was written by Cory Goodman of the upcoming projects Kung Fu and The Brood. Stewart formerly worked at ILM and helped start the visual effects company called The Orphanage, so he's quite experienced in the CGI world.

As far as I know, this is one of the first major TokyoPop adaptations we've seen, although I may be forgetting others. As much as I'd love to believe that this could turn out good, I don't think TokyoPop's comics are the greatest to adapt. Obviously this will have a lot of CGI and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't expect anything spectacular. The concept sounds great on paper, but I fear it'll turn into a mediocre movie in the end. This isn't the first time an adaptation of Priest has been in the works either - Gerard Butler was set to star once, but that fell through. Good luck to Scott Charles Stewart.

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andrew

God damn it they better not mess this up, this is one of my favorite mangas from Korea, the name of the artist is Hyung Min Woo, this guy totally rocks, hope the film will too.
Sojourner

The Priest story spans three distinct time periods; modern times, the Crusades and the Wild West, although it is primarily focused on the last period. Whilst featuring a large cast of heroes, anti-heroes and villains, a number of which enjoying in depth and detailed character development within the plot, the lead antagonist of Priest is Temozarela, whilst the main protagonist is Ivan Isaacs, a now immortal, 19th century priest who sold his soul to Belial, a former priest turned devil, in the pursuit of revenge and redemption after unwittingly unleashing Temozarela from the Domas Porada, a prison of sorts constructed by Belial (then Betheal) to imprison Temozarela. (Nothing about Vampires, is this going to be the same story even? I am only kind of excited at this point. The synopsis is nothing like the Manga at this point.)
TKaihea

I heard about this a while ago but last time it had Gerard Butler attached to play the lead but now on his IMDB page, he is no longer attached. Really looking forward to seeing this movie though, if the project goes ahead. I've heard so much about the comics.
heath

This movie will suck because they strayed far from the source material by giving Ivan Isaacs a niece and having vampires kidnap her. There are no damn vampires in the comic book. What's the point of adding them in when demons, zombies, and monsters are so much cooler?!?! I read the script review at latinoreview couple years back and it's totally stupid. The only way I'll support this movie is if they rewrite the whole damn story from scratch and stick with the original comic book.
AnnieW

Karl Urban is Black Hat.