Glen Mazzara’s take on ‘Damien‘ for A&E is dropping on March 7th and the latest teaser trailer wants us to be on the side of The AntiChrist!
The series is taking place right as Damien turns 30 and as we jump in we see that his knowledge of who and what he is has been repressed. Of course, as Christ was baptized at 30 it seems only fair that the Anti-Christ is learning his true identity at the same age. Fans of the original movie will appreciate that things kick off with a woman giving us a throwback to Damien’s 5th birthday with a woman shouting “Damien, it’s all for you!”
With the sequel films being written off as non-canon, one has to wonder how we’re going to see what Damien’s childhood was like and Bradley James, who is portraying the character, gives us a clue:
“It’s more a case of not being able to articulate it when you’re five and strange things are happening. I looked at it as all that evil, if you will, was a noise. The only way he could escape that noise was by surrounding himself with louder noises. That’s why he became a war photographer. There’s a lot to be said for not knowing any different and not being able to articulate it yourself, having had no one explain it to you.”
Of course, just because he is destined to be the AntiChrist doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. Mazzara plans to give us sympathy for the son of the Devil:
“The approach here is you want to see Damien’s humanity. He’s an Anti-Christ. So if you say Christ is all God and all Human, the Anti-Christ would be all human and all devil. That’s an interesting character to root for. As Damien faces his humanity, he’s going to go down a path where as he’s doing stuff, we both want him to be stopped and want him to fulfill his destiny.”
If you’re interested in checking out how he plans to pull that off you can see some hints in the new trailer below!
While we do know that his knowledge of being the Anti-Christ was repressed, Mazzara tells us that that not all of his childhood and young adult years will have been:
“We play with that. I think we get to that. I know that that gap, that missing 25 years is interesting. We’ve actually looked at and are developing filling in some of that space on other platforms. There’s something being developed with mobile devices. This is a character who has a complete life story and we’re jumping in at this point. Look at that first episode. He’s 30. Christ was baptized when he was 30. That seemed like a good starting point, again using the Christ/Antichrist paradigm I wanted to explore. We do know what happened to him, where he’s been, all of that.”
As the series is clearly going to be based on the end of times and being set in a world where religion is causing major headlines in a multitude of ways, they won’t be avoiding religion in any way:
“I do feel very good about the Catholic theology that’s in the show,” Mazzara said. “I was raised Catholic so there is a Catholic viewpoint. You’ll see right from the jump, people saying, ‘Why are these things happening in our world? What does this mean? How can I go on? How can I survive?’ These are questions that are important to all of us. That’s the viewpoint we’re exploring.”
Just to clarify though, Damien is the Anti-Christ. This won’t be a will he turn good kind of series or find a way to avoid his destiny:
“The show is about Damien’s journey,” Mazzara said. “A man’s search for God leads him to the Devil. It’s a process. One of the things I wanted to avoid was I didn’t just want to have Damien fully cognizant of what was going on and a matter of people trying to flush him out because that’s a serial killer show. I wanted to look at someone who is supposedly tasked with this horrifying future crime, that he is going to bring about the apocalypse. Does he give into that? Does he fight against it? Does he want to do that or not want to do that? I thought that was very interesting. That seemed like the longest run. That seemed like the fullest story. That was a full character arc, a full journey.”
I can’t wait to see how Mazzara plays this out on screen and hopefully he’ll have the ratings to run the show through to the end. I also hope that he has an endpoint in mind that won’t be extended from high ratings so if it’s a set season show in his mind let’s hope it stays that way so no filler material is added.
Are you looking forward to the upcoming sequel to ‘The Omen‘? Do you think in a world where reboots and remakes are shunned that this original take on ‘Damien’ could work? Share your thoughts below!
‘Damien’ will premiere on A&E on March 7th 2016 at 10pm after the season premiere of ‘Bates Motel’
Sources: Slash Film, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline
