Omen’s Schreiber spills it

While it was mostly unofficial, it was assumed for the longest time that Julia Stiles (MONA LISA SMILE) and Liev Schreiber (SCREAM) had signed on to star in OMEN 666 as the parents of Damien. Now, according to Fangoria, it’s a done deal. The two will take on the roles Gregory Peck and Lee Remick originally played in the 1976 classic. While Dan McDermott is set to write the script and John Moore (FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX) has signed on to direct, Schreiber has been quoted as saying that David Seltzer’s script from the original film will be used with changes to make it up to date.

Schreiber continues, saying, “As we look at Hurricane Katrina and all of these sort of catastrophic events that have occurred in the past five or six years, they’re kind of trying to use all of those events to suggest that this is a sign of things to come. And they feel that now, in 2005—or eventually in 2006—it’s almost more appropriate that we would find the coming of the son of Lucifer.”

As for Damien himself, yours truly had reported last month that Josh Hutcherson was rumoured to have gotten the role, but that now appears to be false. Fox has been continually holding auditions for potential Damiens over the last couple of weeks, according to Schrieber. “If we do find the kid who is the right one, it will probably be tough working with him!” As everyone and their dog knows by now, OMEN 666 begins shooting in October in Prague, for release on 6/6/06 (hee hee).