Priest: First Official Photo

Entertainment Weekly has premiered the first photo from Priest, the graphic novel adaptation starring Paul Bettany.

Bettany plays a vampire-hunting man of the cloth in Priest (due out in 2011), set 
in a dystopian future where the bloodsuckers are confined to reservations. “In our world, priests are like Jedi Knights with special powers and training,” explains director Scott Stewart (Legion).

“Our vampires are more feral and disturbing than, say, the teen-angst vampires of Twilight or the sexy vampires of True Blood. Those vampires are metaphors. Ours aren’t.”

The official synopsis of the graphic novel:

“In the frontier of the American west, a veil of evil threatens to engulf humanity. Servants of the fallen archangel Temozarela are paving the way for their dark lord’s resurrection.

One man stands in the way of the apocalypse—Ivan Isaacs—a fallen priest who sold his soul to the devil Belial for the power to fight evil. Armed with a wicked blade and silver bullets, Ivan will give the heretics a baptism of blood in his pilgrimage for humanity’s redemption.

Ivan Isaacs was once a priest. Devoted to his faith he would have given up anything for it. Then the establishment he believed in turned on him, sending him headlong into Hell. Now, he’s back. With the priesthood now corrupt with demons, the undead and black prayers, he has returned with the help of the demon Belial, a voice in the darkness who offered Ivan a chance at vengeance, in exchange for his soul. With his six-shooter, a bouie knife at his side and the white collar of his former life adorning his neck he is a lost pale rider in a barren wild west where past and future collide.”

Joining Paul Betany in the cast ensemble are Cam Gigandet as Hicks, Maggie Q as Priestess, Karl Urban as Black Hat, Lily Collins as Lucy, Stephen Moyer as Aaron, Mädchen Amick as Shannon and Christopher Plummer as Monsignor Orelas.

Priest will arrive in theaters nationwide on May 13, 2011.

Priest poster, Paul Bettany