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Summary
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The First Omen
sets up the events of the classic horror film while delving into themes of power, religion, and body horror. - Producer Keith Levine praises Free’s performance, discusses the rating battle, and emphasizes the importance of practical effects over CGI.
- The film explores themes of fate, female body autonomy, and institutional control, offering a modern take on the classic horror franchise.
The First Omen, a prequel to 1976’s The Omen, follows Margaret Daino, who is set to begin her life of service to the church in Rome. The young nun begins working in an orphanage, but concerning events lead Margaret to question her faith. As darkness begins to overtake her life, she discovers that she is unwittingly at the center of a plot to bring evil incarnate into the world.
The Omen is a classic that has been terrifying audiences for nearly fifty years. While the franchise has grown with many sequels, this is the first prequel and sets up the events of the famed horror movie, including Easter eggs and Father Brennan from the original. Arkasha Stevenson comes out of the gate strong with The First Omen as her feature directorial debut, showing her ability to tap into numerous corners of horror, including power, religion, and body horror.
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The First Omen: Release Date, Cast, Story, Trailer & Everything We Know About The Prequel
The chills of the Omen franchise are returning in The First Omen, and there are already plenty of exciting updates about the terrifying prequel.
Screen Rant interviewed producer Keith Levine about The First Omen. He praised Free’s performance and explained how this fits into The Omen story. Levine also shared how the ratings board helped them create a better scene while fighting for the R rating and discussed pushing boundaries in body horror while exploring themes of women’s bodily autonomy.
Nell Tiger Free Was The First Omen’s “Secret Weapon”
Screen Rant: Can you tell us a little bit about the process of developing the storyline for The First Omen, and how did you ensure that it was going to stay true to the essence of the original film while offering something different?
Keith Levine: We were just excited to play in the world of The Omen. I think whenever we do something that’s with IP or within a story that has a bunch of followers and people already respect, we always say, “Well, what makes this first movie amazing? What do people love about it? Why did it spawn three sequels, and a remake, and a TV show? What made it endure?” So we distill it down to its core elements, and we make sure those things are going to be included.
We know that all the fans of The Omen are really expecting these core things, so we make sure those are built into the bedrock of the story. Then we say, “Hey, you know what? We have those, but it really also has to work on its own.” Obviously, the original came out in 1976, and your average TikTok user hasn’t seen it. So we know that they need to be able to walk into the theater and not have a homework assignment, and hopefully see the movie and then lead them back to the original.
Then for fans of the original who do know it, they can come in the other way. So, it’s got to work both ways. We had a great script. We had a lot of cool plot points. Then Arkasha came in with her writing partner Tim, and they just crushed it. A lot of the stuff that you see in the film were their ideas that they came in the door with. I think they just took everything we were playing around with and took it to the next level. So, it was very exciting when they came on the project.
Nell Tiger Free is phenomenal in this film. She had me loving her the minute I saw her, so I felt a little protective of her. Can you share any details about the casting process for The First Omen, and especially that character, Margaret?
Keith Levine: Margaret is the heart and soul of the movie, obviously, and we needed somebody who could do just that. She starts off she’s quiet, and she’s an introvert, so we needed somebody who could just grab you and pull you in solely on their presence. I have been a massive fan of Nell’s from her work on Servant. Also, what was cool was that we were looking for somebody who maybe hadn’t been in a ton of genre movies already.
I think sometimes you can see the same actors cycle through some of these movies and they start to merge together. So we also loved that Nell hadn’t had that big screen feature debut really especially something like this where the whole weight of the movie was on her. So we were just massive fans, and believed in her. She just crushed it, is a total pro, and just a wonderful human being to boot. Just showed up every day with a smile.
Literally was on set every single day of a pretty grueling shoot, and was never the problem child, never the person you had to worry about. So, it was amazing. I think that goes back to the choice we made. She was Margaret. Once we saw her and felt her, we were like, “Wow.” We couldn’t really see anybody else in the role, and that stayed true all the way through production, and into post. Post, you’re watching these people over and over, and sometimes the performances can break down.
I think Nell was our secret weapon. We always knew we had her in our back pocket. You always knew you had this character who started off, and was super shy, and at the end of the movie was going to pull a shotgun on you. So it was this crazy character arc, and we knew she could pull it off, and we think she crushed it.
The original film is famous for its practical effects and stunts. With the advancements in technology, how do you balance the practical effects in CG in the first element?
Keith Levine: Well, everything we do always starts off from a practical base. We had the Morot’s, Adrien and Kathy, who work for Morot Effects, and they just won an Oscar for building the suit for Brendan Fraser for The Whale. Everything we did, whether it was a severed body, whether it was a birthing clinic scene where something was coming out at you, it all started with a practical real base. I think your brain knows, we always start grounded.
Then if we need it, we go in and augment with visual effects. That is universally how it’s done. You hear the term practical all the time, but practical always means some VFX cleanup. I would say really, really appreciate the good folks at 20th, ’cause they really supported us in going that route. Sometimes that stuff can take time, and it can cost money, and they let us. If I look back at every one of our set pieces, we built some crazy prosthetic, or we burned stuff.
We really went there when you cannot go there these days. So we also just tried to honor that tactile feel of the ’76 film, and the ones that came after it where you have these Rube Goldberg disasters. We were like, “Unless these feel real, they’re not going to work.”
The First Omen’s R Rating Was “A Battle Every Step Of The Way”
I feel like this version of The First Omen actually is the new bar for a lot of what we’re going to see in Hollywood going forward. I know that you guys had to fight hard for your R rating, from that NC-17. Is that something you could talk about a little bit?
Keith Levine: Look, that scene in particular, which I can’t think of any other scene in any other movie to compare it to, something that came off the festival circuit, let alone something that came out of the studio system. That was one of Arkasha’s big ideas, when she walked in the door, she had this image and I think everyone was a little shook like, “Wait.”
We could see people on the edge of their seats. But Goyer and I, and if Goyer were here, we were leaning in. We just thought, “Wow.” I think there was something cool about, when the original came out in ’76, it shook audiences. There were beheadings, there were these things that, at the time, were quite shocking. And you had Gregory Peck in all of it, so it took it all up to the next level. It wasn’t something that you were going to see at the drive-in, this was a big studio film.
Shock and awe is hard to do these days. So I think when Arkasha came in with that, at least on our side, we were like, “We got to make this happen.” Look, it was a battle every step of the way, but obviously the biggest battle was with the ratings board. I said this in talking to someone else but, weirdly, we had to do so much back and forth with them that, by the time we actually got the R rating, we kept the scene, and it got more intense.
Sometimes you feel like you hold your head low after some of these battles ’cause you feel like you’ve neutered something. Here it was like, “Did we just make this better?” I think that’s what ended up happening. So, we want to give them almost a shout-out. They truly helped us find the scene, and now it’s even more visceral and more powerful. So it was one of those things where the process… I think they think they won, but we feel like we really won.
Back in the ’76 version, it really did push the boundaries of what horror was, especially during that time. For a lot of eagle-eyed fans of The Omen, The Omen series, and all the other iterations of those films, what Easter eggs or callbacks to the original film can they be on the lookout for in The First Omen?
Keith Levine: Again, just the way we started it is, one, we loved the original film, and we treated it as high art. It’s our opus. It’s up on an altar for us. So every plot point, and even within certain lines and characters, we have characters in our movie that flow into the original movie. We have certain signals of the antichrist that you get to see here in their nascent stages. Obviously, we have the origin of Damien. We have a lot of stuff that feeds into the original, and we have some twists on some of the original stuff too.
I think that’s what’s exciting, is that you can come into the film, even if you’ve seen the ’76 version, you can see our movie, and it does work on its own, and it also gets to take you off in this new direction. Hopefully, you get excited about seeing how certain characters progress beyond this film. But I think what’s so cool about it is, it’s almost like Rogue One to Star Wars.
It just butts right up against it. I also can’t really think of anything else in the horror space that has worked like that. That was another thing that excited me to do this. We have worked in a lot of franchises, and we’ve done reboots, and we’ve taken titles and started fresh. I don’t know, just that idea of doing something that really locked right in with the original was so cool. That was a North Star for us in a lot of ways.
The Omen series deals with the themes of fate, destiny, and the battle between good and evil. How are these themes explored or expanded in The First Omen?
Keith Levine: Again, all those themes are still definitely in our film, but I think we take some more modern themes probably and obviously bring them to the forefront. I think institutional control is a big thing we’re exploring. That was also in the background in the ’76 version. Female body autonomy is something that is talked about all the time, I think that’s front and center here.
So I think what we try to do is take the movie that, at the time, think about what those issues were in ’76, and what it felt like, and say, “Well, what do we do for the modern audience?” I think that’s what’s so amazing about working in the genre space, is that you do get to comment on what’s happening in society at the time. When Goyer and I start a film, that’s always something we talk about.
What was so cool here was that, when Arkasha came in, we just dialed all that up, and it just got so much more prevalent. But also, still being an entertaining film. Hopefully people go into this, and they’re looking away, they’re throwing their popcorn, but also they walk away a little bit with some of these themes that we’ve touched upon and slid into the entertainment.
The First Omen Is “A Boundary Pushing Original Story Within A Franchise”
What personal marks do you believe The First Omen leaves on the horror genre, and what makes this a must-see film for horror enthusiasts?
Keith Levine: I’m a fan of the genre also. I go see every genre film that comes out, mainly ’cause I’m a fan. I can share that same cynicism that a lot of fans have when you see something coming back around, when you see something that’s a prequel, when something maybe similar in the space hasn’t worked, and there’s a bit of a fatigue to say, “We want to see something original.”
I think what’s so cool about what we’ve done is, we are telling almost a boundary pushing original story within a franchise. I think that’s super cool. Hopefully people are encouraged by some of the risks and some of the swings that we take within this movie to do that elsewhere. I think it shows that, hopefully, you don’t have to play it safe, and you can do it at a big level. I think it’s just about finding a filmmaker who wants to go there, and that was Arkasha.
She really, really didn’t want to make something that was just basic and would just sit there. She wanted to make something that would provoke a reaction, and felt like it had some gusto behind it and took a big swing, and I think that’s what we did.
Now, having worked on The First Omen, which aspect of this project was the most rewarding for you personally?
Keith Levine: Anytime you can get something out of development, onto the screen, and then into a theater, words can’t describe it. It’s been a very long process. But with this one, what was so cool, honestly, we love working with first time filmmakers. Just getting to support Arkasha to tell this story on this big canvas, I think that was awesome for us, creatively, for Goyer and I. Just for the movie as a whole, we got off the starting block towards the end of the pandemic.
Originally, the movie was going to be on Hulu. Then, when we started to have this finished product, and it was so unique, and I think so bold, there became the talk of a theatrical release. So, that also was a big accomplishment for this film. I think people, especially within the studio, to their credit, got excited about it and saw how bold it was, and realized that it was something that could be experienced theatrically. So, that was very exciting for us.
Back in ’76, the trajectory of horror has changed. What fans now expect from horror movies is different from what they expected back in the 70s. So how do you stay true to the era that this story takes place in, but update it for a modern audience?
Keith Levine: In the history of horror, the things that have stood out, in my opinion, have been movies that have had great storytelling. They’ve been people who wanted to make a great movie first, and also a horror film. I think that’s also the approach we took here. It wasn’t necessarily about just trying to make a buck out of the name, or some cheap thrills here and there.
We really wanted to make a film where you sat down, and you were drawn in, and you get sucked into this conspiracy and, before you know it, you’re on the edge of your seat. That was also, in my opinion, why we still talk about the ’76 film?. If you look at other things of the day, it had an incredibly gripping performance at the center of it in Gregory Peck. It had amazing characters in Father Brennan. So yes, it had a kid who you thought was Satan at the center of it. But also, it was real.
You could tell that a lot of love of the craft went into it, and that the filmmakers were treating the material with reverence, and that’s the same thing we did. So I think we took the same approach, that same wanting to make a real movie. Obviously, hopefully, if people talk about this movie 50 years from now, we’ve done our job. But, who knows? Again, we wanted to just tell a great story, and hopefully that’s what we did.
You guys knocked it out of the park. The ’76 version is brilliant, and I feel like this is definitely a worthy prequel of that film. Like I said before, this is a deliciously visceral, incredible film. Also, I’m a big fan of your Batman Unburied. It was incredible.
Keith Levine: Yeah. We’re doing a season two of Batman Unburied right now, so it’s coming soon. It’s going to be awesome. We’re about to start recording pretty soon, so it’s exciting.
About The First Omen
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.
Check out our other interview with The First Omen director Arkasha Stevenson.
The First Omen
hits theaters on April 5.
The First Omen
The First Omen is a horror film from director Arkasha Stevenson that acts as a prequel to the 1976 film The Omen. The film follows a young woman who goes to Rome to become a nun but begins to question her faith after encountering a terrifying darkness that aims to spawn an evil incarnate.
Director Arkasha Stevenson
Release Date April 5, 2024
Studio(s) Phantom Four
Distributor(s) 20th Century
Writers Ben Jacoby , Tim Smith , Arkasha Stevenson , Keith Thomas
Cast Nell Tiger Free , Tawfeek Barhom , sonia braga , Ralph Ineson , Bill Nighy
Franchise(s) The Omen