I'm sorry, but waltzing-in 50 years later to hollow-out the guts of The Omen so that your movie can fit all nice and tidy into its empty husk is just lazy and cheap and profoundly disrespectful of the original.
"The First Omen," a new thriller from 20th Century Studios / Disney is coming soon! But why are they stonewalling David Seltzer, the writer of the classic movie upon which it is based?
Omen prequel had three writers; Ben Jacoby, Hayes brothers, and Gillian Flynn but remains in limbo.
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In 2016 The Hollywood Reporter broke news that an Omen prequel was in the works — tentatively titled, The First Omen — and indie filmmaker Antonio Compos was attached to direct. At that time, I outlined one potential way a prequel could work . Since then there has been no new developments reported about the film.
One year ago this week A&E premiered a drama that dared to ask the question: What ever happened to that little boy at the end of The Omen ? Showrunner Glen Mazzara didn’t care that the question had already been asked – and answered – in two Omen sequels; the Shield and Walking Dead producer had his own ideas. He cast British heartthrob Bradley James ( Merlin’s King Arthur ) as the Antichrist and set out to tell an alternate future for DAMIEN .
On Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter broke news that a prequel to The Omen was coming from 20th Century Fox . Appropriately titled The First Omen , it’s being produced by David Goyer and Kevin Turen through their Phantom Four production company and a script has already been written by Ben Jacoby . Antonio Campos is in talks to direct. Now… I don’t know who Jacoby is and I haven’t seen anything by Campos or Turen. But I’m sure we’re all familiar with Goyer. Initially, I assumed the news was about Platinum Dunes finally gaining some traction on the Omen remake that Bloody Disgusting reported on in 2014. But no – this is really about a prequel!
When Damien was announced in late 2014, I was blown away by the idea. To die-hard fans of The Omen , this was exciting news. Of course, I don’t speak for all Omen fans; I’m sure some hated the idea – and still do. They’re usually the same people who think it’s cool to hate sequels, prequels, and remakes, (some on principal alone) and who drone on and on about how unoriginal Hollywood has become. But sequels and remakes are nothing new – they’ve been around almost as long as filmmaking itself. Are they all good? Hell, no. Most are inferior to the original. And many downright suck. But when it works – it’s great. It’s all about storytelling. If the story works and it’s told well, does it really matter how derivative it is? And if it doesn’t work, so what? We still have the originals. I’m annoyed when people say a poor sequel has somehow ruined the integrity of the original. No, it hasn’t. Grow up.
Merlin star, Bradley James has landed the title role of “Damien” in the upcoming Lifetime original series based on the 1976 classic, The Omen. Here’s an image to celebrate the news (click to enlarge). Details in the Deadline news article here. We’ll post more news as it happens.