The Exorcist spawned a series of sequels and prequels that couldn’t agree on where its characters had come from or where they were going. Now it seems the same fate has befallen The Omen, which was one of the other big supernatural horror movies from the 1970s.
The original film spawned two big-screen sequels that saw Damien Thorn, the boy destined to become the Antichrist, grow to adulthood. The third film ended with the Second Coming of Christ and the death of the Antichrist at the hands of his lover, but it was followed ten years later by a TV-movie in which we learned that Damien had sired a daughter in whom his creepiness lived on. (Meanwhile, the TV-movie also revealed, no doubt unintentionally, that the Second Coming had had absolutely zero effect on the world, and that things were still ticking along as though nothing had happened.)
The original film has since been remade, rebooted and reworked a few times. There was a TV pilot for a series that never happened called The Omen in 1995, plus a miniseries called Revelations in 2005, and there was a big-screen remake in 2006; you can read my interview with the director of that film here.
Now, instead of starting from scratch again, it looks like the powers that be are going to make a new sequel of sorts to the original movie. The Hollywood Reporter says the Lifetime network has struck a deal with Glen Mazzara (The Shield, The Walking Dead) to create a follow-up to the original film called Damien that will focus on the title character when he is an adult, “haunted by his past” and “faced with a series of macabre events” until he “must finally face his true destiny: he is the Antichrist.”
This semi-reboot could actually resolve one of the issues I have always had with the original trilogy. Specifically: the first three films came out over a five-year span, between 1976 and 1981, and they all seemed to take place more or less around the time when they were made, but Damien himself aged a few decades over the course of the trilogy. If the new show ignores the existing sequels and presents itself as a direct sequel to the original 1976 film, then Damien would be in his 40s by now.
Then again, that might be a little old for an Antichrist, especially one who has not fully accepted his destiny yet. (On the other hand, Michael York was in his late 50s when he starred as an Antichrist discovering his destiny in The Omega Code.) Maybe they’ll pretend the original film took place in the 1980s or even more recently than that. Just so long as they don’t pretend that Damien is a follow-up to the 2006 remake.
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