The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Glen Mazzara, former show runner for The Walking Dead for a season and a half will be adapting the 1976 Gregory Peck horror classic The Omen for Lifetime television.
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Mazzara was executive show runner on the ratings juggernaut The Walking Dead from 2011 to 2013 and helped the show its huge viewing numbers. Nor is this his first film-to-television adaptation, as he was the exec in charge of bringing Crash, the adaptation of the 2005 Best Picture winner, to Starz several years back. To me, he will always be the guy who gave us the criminally under appreciated Life, starring Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi.
The Omen show, which will be called Damien, will follow an older Damien, the blank-eyed demonic child from the original, as he struggles to reconcile the fact that he is the Antichrist. It is a departure from the romantic dramas one finds on the Lifetime network. Several sequels have already been made, including a failed tv pilot from 1995 for FOX, as well as the 2006 remake starring Julia Stiles which grossed a not-too paltry $120 million at the box office.
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Horror adaptations are all the rage nowadays. The success of Bates Motel on TNT, which offers up a compelling prequel story to the events of Hitchcock's Psycho. A Rosemary's Baby mini-series is finishing up its run on NBC to solid reviews and ratings. Call it a sign of the times, we're worried and we want to be scared. There's a show called Salem about the 17th century Salem witch trials. Sleepy Hollow on FOX has a playful but still macabre horror setting to it. Grimm updates the fairy tales of our chidhoods to a more modern and yes, grim, setting. And of course The Walking Dead continues to reign supreme in the ratings, even if I haven't watched in years.
Mazzara is also getting in on the prequel game. He is penning the prequel film of The Shining called Overlook Hotel. The Omen show represents the first project between Mazzara and his production company, 44 Strong Productions and Fox Television Studios, which owns Lifetime.
One can only hope that executives start mining the classic 1970s and 80s horror films. An Exorcist television show is obviously coming sooner rather than later and maybe this will get that stalled Hellraiser pilot off the ground. But let's think outside the box, how about a Leprechaun show, or a Troll series or the many misadventures of the Cannibal Humanoid Underground Dwellers? If someone were to serialize The Lawnmower Man or Night of the Comet who among you wouldn't watch?
Watch the trailer for the original!
