The classic horror film The Omen and its slightly less-classic sequels have had a remarkably long shelf life. With four films spanning from the original in 1976 to 1991, plus a remake of the first film in 2006, The Omen series rivals The Exorcist for bad films spawned from a pretty good original. Now, The Omen trajectory will continue with a six-episode series from Fox called Damien, which will star Bradley James as everyone’s favorite Antichrist.
Damien charts the grown-up life of Damien Thorn, the evil little guy who killed everyone in the first film. Damien has become taller and sexier, though, and is apparently struggling to come to terms with the whole spawn of Satan thing. It’s not easy being the Antichrist.
Damien’s first episode will be directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), making his television directing debut. He has a good star in James, who played King Arthur in the series Merlin, and actually makes good sense to play the bad boy of the Underworld. He’s likable and good-looking, but I’ll bet that he can be plenty evil, too.
Damien is set to arrive in 2015, though we do not yet know the time and date of the premiere. Given the success of TV adaptations of films (and books) like Hannibal and Fargo, a sequel series to The Omen sounds like a good bet. We shall have to wait until 2015 though to see if Damien’s powers are still what they used to be.
