On April 5th, 20th Century Studios gave a theatrical release to The First Omen, which serves as a prequel to the 1976 horror classic The Omen (watch it HERE) – and the movie was surprisingly well-received, with JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray giving it an 8/10 review and Tyler Nichols writing an article about why it works so well. The movie hasn’t been burning up the box office charts; made on a budget of $30 million, it has only pulled in $36 million so far. But if a sequel were to get the greenlight, director Arkasha Stevenson knows one subject she would want to cover in the follow-up: the mystery of the jackal.
In the original The Omen, we were told that the Antichrist was born of a jackal. The First Omen digs deeper into his parentage, letting us know that it wasn’t quite as simple (although very strange) as it appeared to be in the original movie, but SPOILER there is still a jackal of sorts in the mix. And Stevenson wants to tell us more about that jackal.
Speaking with Collider, Stevenson said, “I think the jackal’s still a huge mystery and understanding where it came from and why and how they’re able to capture it and utilize it. I have a lot of theories about that, and I think that’d be an interesting thing to explore.“
The First Omen has the following synopsis: When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.
Nell Tiger Free of the Apple TV+ series Servant stars alongside Tawfeek Barhom (Mary Magdalene), Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Ralph Ineson (The Witch), Nicole Sorace (Summer Limited Edition), Maria Caballero (The Girl in the Mirror), Charles Dance (Alien 3), Ishtar Currie-Wilson (Lockwood & Co.), Andrea Arcangeli (Like Sheep Among Wolves), Rachel Hurd-Wood (Peter Pan), Eva Ras (Goose Feather), and Bill Nighy (Shaun of the Dead).
The film was produced by David S. Goyer and Keith Levine, with Tim Smith serving as executive producer with Whitney Brown and Gracie Wheelan. We first heard that a prequel to The Omen was in development way back in 2016. At that time, Antonio Campos (The Devil All the Time) was in talks to direct First Omen from a script by Ben Jacoby (Bleed). Later The Conjuring writers Chad and Carey Hayes came on board to work on the script, and they were followed by author Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl). The film ended up in the hands of Arkasha Stevenson – who has previously directed episodes of the genre shows Channel Zero, Legion, and Brand New Cherry Flavor. Stevenson rewrote the script with her writing partner Tim Smith, then Firestarter‘s Keith Thomas worked on it as well.
The Omen (1976) was followed by Damien: Omen II in 1978, Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981, Omen IV: The Awakening in 1991, and a 2006 remake. So this is the sixth entry in the film franchise.
Would you like to see a sequel to The First Omen, and do you want to know more about the jackal? Let us know by leaving a comment below.