It may turn out to be a scary First for Antonio Campos…
The half-Brazilian American filmmaker is in talks to direct the supernatural horror thriller The First Omen for 20th Century Fox.
It’s a prequel to The Omen, which is being planned for release some forty years after the original was first released.
Campos most recently directed the Sundance Film Festival movie Christine.
The original movie starred the great Gregory Peck as an ambassador who comes to believe that his 5-year-old son may be the living embodiment of the Antichrist.
The movie, directed by Richard Donner, was one of the biggest hits of the year and considered one of the scariest movies of the decade. It introduced Damien, the name of the son, into the pop culture lexicon, and preyed on fears of baby swapping and evil nannies.
Omen spawned two sequels and a series of novels. Fox remade the movie once before, in a 2006 iteration directed by John Moore and starring Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles.
Fox is currently airing a TV version of The Omen titled Damien, helmed by The Walking Dead‘s Glen Mazzara.
Ben Jacoby wrote the script for the prequel.
Campos is a player in the indie sphere and was a producer on movies such as Martha Marcy May Marlene. He previously directed 2012’s Simon Killer. His drama Christine starred Rebecca Hall and Michael C. Hall and premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where distribution outfit The Orchard snapped up domestic rights.