Hallelujah! Amen! Christianity is so inherent in western story-telling, you can't really get around it. But it wasn't something that drew me to it more or less.
There's so many great Western films. Let's see, 'Red River,' any of those Henry Fonda movies are fantastic. Any of those John Ford movies are fantastic. I love all the Eastwood 'Man With No Name' movies, John Wayne, 'True Grit.'
'The Sisters Brothers' has endeared so many prize juries because the Western format has more of a broad appeal and is familiar to readers.
Preacher is a book that somehow allows me time by its settling on it's characters, that sort of modern gothic western feel. You're not likely to see the boat veering too far from that.
I think for the last fifteen, twenty years or so, Hollywood has underestimated the appeal of the Western. I think there is still a huge market.
Sci fi allowed us to be more true to the western than maybe even doing a literal western.
I was never a western guy, but I happened upon 'Tombstone' one day on TV and was really sort of taken with it. It's one of those movies that, if it's on TV, I can't turn it off. I just have to watch the whole thing.
There are very few films that I've ever seen in my life that would be as silent or vacant as something like Jeremiah Johnson, and that to me was unbelievably captivating. You can see the same about [The Outlaw] Josey Wales: there's very little dialogue, and yet it contains such a deep, rich story. I've always thought of the western as American storytelling at its best.
