The Omen Glen Mazzara - P 2014
Courtesy Everett Collection; AP ImagesGlen Mazzara is sticking with the horror genre.
The former Walking Dead showrunner is developing a follow-up to the 1976 horror classic for Lifetime, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Titled Damien, the drama centers on the film’s young boy, Damien Thorn. Now an adult and haunted by his past, Damien is faced with a series of macabre events and must finally face his true destiny: He is the Antichrist.
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Mazzara (The Shield) will pen the script and executive produce via his 44 Strong Productions banner. The sale marks Mazzara’s first via his overall deal with Fox Television Studios. Ross Fineman (Lights Out) will also executive produce via his FTVS-based Fineman Entertainment.
Damien marks Mazzara’s first TV gig following his season-and-a-half run on The Walking Dead, where he helped propel the zombie drama to then-record ratings. The Lifetime gig also marks his latest movie-to-TV adaptation, joining Starz’s Crash follow-up. On the big-screen, Mazzara is writing Overlook Hotel, a prequel to Stephen King‘s horror classic, The Shining.
The Omen, from writer David Seltzer and director Richard Donner, starred Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as parents whose son dies at birth and instead secretly adopt an orphan whose mother died at the same time — only they eventually learn that the child, Damien (played by Harvey Spencer Stephens), is the Antichrist.
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The original film grossed more than $60 million domestically and spawned two sequels — 1978’s Damien: Omen II and Omen II: The Final Conflict in 1981. TV movies Omen IV: The Awakening (1991) and The Omen (1995) followed. The latter was produced by and aired on Fox in a bid to grow the franchise into a TV series. Donner was attached as an exec produce but the series did not move forward. Seltzer in 2005 revamped his novel for The Omen into a 2005 NBC miniseries series starring Bill Pullman called Revelations. The flagship film was remade in 2006 and starred Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Damien. The remake grossed nearly $120 million worldwide.
For Lifetime, Damien marks a dramatic shift from the typically female-skewing fare the cable network has become known for. The cabler more recently has been pushing further into the increasingly popular genre territory with witchy drama Witches of East End, now in its second season, and with dystopian thriller The Lottery on deck.
Mazzara is repped by CAA.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
