David Seltzer, You Were Adopted
OMEN remake so faithful that only original's writer is credited.
Recent ink on the upcoming remake of THE OMEN has revealed that the retread is so thin that David Seltzer, scribe of Richard Donner’s original film, has received the sole writing credit on John Moore’s update – despite the fact that Seltzer and the new director have never even met. However, Irish-born Moore has bigger problems than an all-too-common lack of originality. The filmmaker may have damned himself and his movie by including footage of, among other contemporary tragedies, the devastation of September 11th, 2001, in order to imbue the fantasy with the sense that the End Times are upon us.
A May 16th press screening of his OMEN-remake played to a less than impressed audience. "During the introduction to the Q&A, a gentlemen purported to have a question, which really turned out to be a statement,” Moore recounted to Sci-Fi Wire. “He asked if I was from New York, and I said no. Then he said, 'How dare you use an image of 9/11, and your movie's a piece of sh--t.' And then he stormed off."
Like the 1976 original, the remake concerns Damien Thorn (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), the young son of a diplomat father (Liev Schreiber), and his devoted wife, Katherine (Julia Stiles). Sinister events surrounding the boy’s sixth birthday reveal to the Thorns that their son is the Antichrist. Lovers of the first OMEN will find that the greater body of the first film has been imported – in some cases word for word and shot for shot – into the present project. Moore excuses the absence of the remake’s proper screenwriter from the credits thusly: "Dan McDermott was a credited writer, but due to the machinations of the [Writer's Guild of America], he lost his credit." The specifics of that remain unexplained, but as to the text of his remake, Moore admits: "We did use Mr. Seltzer's script extensively."
Has Moore put any of his own touches on the material? "I think I did, by default," he said, in a moment of either pathological honesty or outright shame. "It's a different cast; it's a different movie; it's a different experience. The story is the same. I don't mean this in a flattering way to myself; I mean it in a flattering way to the text. It's a bit like a Shakespeare play. You very much want people to enjoy the experience of the play, but the text is so good, and the story tracks so well, that you feel inclined to stick with that.”
Knowing what one does about the director’s additions to the story, one may decide he was right to be so hands-off. But unlike the poor Thorn parents, Moore had been warned about what he was conceiving. "I did stay up late at night wondering whether or not to use [9/11 imagery] in the movie,” he confessed. “Other people said, 'For God's sake, use Rwanda' or something like that. Which in and of itself is interesting. But you'd have to be churlish to not understand that this is America. If you're using images of pain that happened in America, and you're showing it to Americans, you can expect there to be an emotional reaction." Evidently he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to discern just what kind of emotional reaction it would garner.
Moore’s last baffling words on the subject are as follows: "Believe me, I looked into a lot of cases of pure evil, and it's undeniable that looking at the last few years you can't walk away thinking that's not one of the most significant events. That's why it's used. I tried to use it in an analytical context. I didn't use it to get people upset."
Finally, the director claimed that he screened the end product for Richard Donner himself, and that the elder director was “happy with it”. If you’re not busy throwing rice at the wedding of Anton Lavey’s grandson in Las Vegas, you can see The Omen in theaters on 6/6/06 and form your own opinions.
To read more of John Moore in his own words, follow the links: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36281
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36234
For a selection of clips from his remake, go to:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/theomen.html
And for a brief history of the whole dubious enterprise:
http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/movies/omen666.php
Recent ink on the upcoming remake of THE OMEN has revealed that the retread is so thin that David Seltzer, scribe of Richard Donner’s original film, has received the sole writing credit on John Moore’s update – despite the fact that Seltzer and the new director have never even met. However, Irish-born Moore has bigger problems than an all-too-common lack of originality. The filmmaker may have damned himself and his movie by including footage of, among other contemporary tragedies, the devastation of September 11th, 2001, in order to imbue the fantasy with the sense that the End Times are upon us.
A May 16th press screening of his OMEN-remake played to a less than impressed audience. "During the introduction to the Q&A, a gentlemen purported to have a question, which really turned out to be a statement,” Moore recounted to Sci-Fi Wire. “He asked if I was from New York, and I said no. Then he said, 'How dare you use an image of 9/11, and your movie's a piece of sh--t.' And then he stormed off."
Like the 1976 original, the remake concerns Damien Thorn (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), the young son of a diplomat father (Liev Schreiber), and his devoted wife, Katherine (Julia Stiles). Sinister events surrounding the boy’s sixth birthday reveal to the Thorns that their son is the Antichrist. Lovers of the first OMEN will find that the greater body of the first film has been imported – in some cases word for word and shot for shot – into the present project. Moore excuses the absence of the remake’s proper screenwriter from the credits thusly: "Dan McDermott was a credited writer, but due to the machinations of the [Writer's Guild of America], he lost his credit." The specifics of that remain unexplained, but as to the text of his remake, Moore admits: "We did use Mr. Seltzer's script extensively."
Has Moore put any of his own touches on the material? "I think I did, by default," he said, in a moment of either pathological honesty or outright shame. "It's a different cast; it's a different movie; it's a different experience. The story is the same. I don't mean this in a flattering way to myself; I mean it in a flattering way to the text. It's a bit like a Shakespeare play. You very much want people to enjoy the experience of the play, but the text is so good, and the story tracks so well, that you feel inclined to stick with that.”
Knowing what one does about the director’s additions to the story, one may decide he was right to be so hands-off. But unlike the poor Thorn parents, Moore had been warned about what he was conceiving. "I did stay up late at night wondering whether or not to use [9/11 imagery] in the movie,” he confessed. “Other people said, 'For God's sake, use Rwanda' or something like that. Which in and of itself is interesting. But you'd have to be churlish to not understand that this is America. If you're using images of pain that happened in America, and you're showing it to Americans, you can expect there to be an emotional reaction." Evidently he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to discern just what kind of emotional reaction it would garner.
Moore’s last baffling words on the subject are as follows: "Believe me, I looked into a lot of cases of pure evil, and it's undeniable that looking at the last few years you can't walk away thinking that's not one of the most significant events. That's why it's used. I tried to use it in an analytical context. I didn't use it to get people upset."
Finally, the director claimed that he screened the end product for Richard Donner himself, and that the elder director was “happy with it”. If you’re not busy throwing rice at the wedding of Anton Lavey’s grandson in Las Vegas, you can see The Omen in theaters on 6/6/06 and form your own opinions.
To read more of John Moore in his own words, follow the links: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36281
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36234
For a selection of clips from his remake, go to:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/theomen.html
And for a brief history of the whole dubious enterprise:
http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/movies/omen666.php
posted by claire donner at Sunday, May 28, 2006
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