UPDATE: Collider confirms with sources that the deal is in “the final stages” and THR makes it official. Read our original story below.

We came across this rather exciting tweet from Disturbia and I Am Number Four director D.J. Caruso:

My deal just closed on Preacher. Going back to the dark side and pretty fucking pumped!

While we await some kind of confirmation, this means we might actually see some movement on the John August-scripted adaptation of the influential graphic novel series by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon.

This adaptation has been one of the most hotly anticipated – and annoyingly slow to get moving – projects in recent memory. Numerous directors have come and gone, including The A-Team‘s Joe Carnahan and Sam Mendes, who left the project to focus on Bond 23.

Alice in Wonderland and Go scripter John August first confirmed his involvement just over two years ago, and now we’re getting some serious rumbles of life, including a report from /Film last week. I think Caruso is a solid choice: he’s tenacious, talented, and takes risks most mainstream directors wouldn’t consider. Plus, if by going “back to the dark side,” he means visiting the darker terrains of his excellent breakout film The Salton Sea, then all the better.

For those who don’t know (and how dare you not), Preacher follows the adventures of Rev. Jesse Custer, a Texas preacher who teams up with Irish vampire Cassidy (modeled on The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan) and his ex-old-lady Tulip to basically hunt down God and demand answers. The Big Man has left Heaven in the wake of an unholy sexual union: an angel and a demon conceive a new entity, which escape it’s confines and embeds itself in Custer, who can command people with the Word of God.

I’m actually not surprised this project has taken this long to come together. Preacher is a huge story, with the synopsis above only scratching the surface of what happens along the way. Whittling this down to a satisfying two-hour experience could not have been easy, but I’ll my pair of ivory-carved dice (that I won off the Devil in a backwoods game of craps) that August’s script leaves plenty of room for sequels.

Are you a fan of Preacher? What do you think of D.J. Caruso as a director?