Summary

The First Omen
is the sixth installment in
The Omen
franchise, but despite its positive critical reviews, it failed to attract a wide theatrical audience.
The disappointing box office performance may be attributed to prequel fatigue, long-gestating lore alterations, and competition from rival horror films.
Originally intended for streaming, the prequel’s theatrical release raised its profile but has yet to become a true box-office success.

The First Omen, a prequel to the classic 1976 supernatural horror film The Omen, tells the story of a young American woman, a devout nun in training, who uncovers a horrifying conspiracy to facilitate the birth of the Antichrist in Rome, where American diplomat Robert Thorn takes custody of the Antichrist, renamed Damien Thorn, in The Omen.

The First Omen marks the sixth installment in the now nearly 50-year-old The Omen film series, which had been previously dormant since the release of the 2006 The Omen remake. Within the intervening period, the only activity within the franchise was the short-lived A&E television series Damien, which serves as a direct sequel to the 1976 film while ignoring the sequels.

Excluding Damien, the 1991 made-for-television film Omen IV: The Awakening, and the 2006 The Omen remake, The First Omen represents the first original installment to be released theatrically in over 40 years since the 1981 release of The Final Conflict, which concludes the original The Omen trilogy by presenting the climactic battle between Christ and an adult Damien Thorn.

However, while The First Omen has received generally excellent critical reviews, the prequel has failed to attract a wide theatrical audience. Among the various factors that have been cited for the film’s disappointing box-office performance is the belief that many people would rather watch the movie on streaming, which is where the film was initially supposed to be released.

The First Omen Lacks Mass Appeal
The First Omen 3/5 Release Date April 5, 2024 Director Arkasha Stevenson Runtime 2h

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In its opening weekend of theatrical release, The First Omen, which debuted alongside the action thriller film Monkey Man, was projected to gross between $14 million and $15 million at the domestic box office. In comparison, the 2006 The Omen remake, which carried a production cost of $25 million, debuted at approximately $16 million and finished its theatrical run with a worldwide gross of approximately $120 million.

The First Omen, which carries a production cost of $30 million, grossed approximately $8.4 million in its opening weekend of release at the domestic box office, in which the film debuted in fourth position, behind the holdover release Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Monkey Man finished second with a gross of $10.1 million.

The disappointing opening for The First Omen exposed a divide between the positive critical reaction to the film and the comparatively lukewarm audience reaction. Indeed, while the horror film presently has a solid 80 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, this is countered by a less-impressive 69 percent audience score. Moreover, The First Omen received a dismal C CinemaScore, compared to a B+ grade for Monkey Man.

The tepid audience reaction to The First Omen reveals that the film, like many long-gestating prequels, resides within a commercial no man’s land. While longtime fans of The Omen series are seemingly bothered by how the new movie alters the original film’s lore, in terms of Damien Thorn’s origin story, other viewers have shied away from the horror flick due to prequel fatigue and the perception that The First Omen is derivative of other church-based horror films, specifically the rival psychological horror film Immaculate.

Immaculate Overshadowed The First Omen

One prominent explanation for The First Omen’s disappointing box-office performance is its proximity to the similarly themed horror film Immaculate. The latter was released two weeks before The First Omen and has so much in common with the former that audiences and critics have labeled them cinematic twins.

Immaculate stars Sydney Sweeney as an American nun, a beautiful, spiritual young woman who joins a remote Italian convent in and around Rome, where Sweeney’s character, much like the female protagonist in The First Omen, uncovers a diabolical conspiracy that involves a blasphemous conception and birth. Like what happens in The First Omen, Sweeney’s character serves as the vessel through which Immaculate explores the concept of female bodily autonomy.

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Regardless, while Immaculate has received mixed reviews, the film, which carries a production cost of approximately $9 million, has made The First Omen seem somewhat redundant for uniformed audiences, especially at the domestic box office, where Immaculate has a current total of approximately $15.2 million, while The First Omen has grossed approximately $14.6 million through its second weekend of release.

The First Omen Was Made for Streaming

It’s no secret that before The First Omen was given a theatrical release through Disney subsidiary 20th Century Studios, Disney originally intended to release the horror prequel exclusively through its Hulu streaming content hub. Disney eventually decided to give the film a theatrical release to stem the theatrical distribution shortfall created by the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

Regardless, while The First Omen, which has a current worldwide box-office gross of approximately $35.4 million, certainly isn’t a box-office success, the prequel’s comparably modest $30 million production cost means that any theatrical loss for the film will be minor. Given that the $30 million figure was originally intended for a Hulu release, without the expected addition of any theatrical revenue, the lackluster box-office performance of The First Omen has nonetheless served to raise the film’s profile substantially in advance of its Hulu release.

Moreover, while the made-for-streaming label undoubtedly hurt The First Omen at the box office, a successful run on Hulu would provide a clear rationale for continuing The Omen series, especially since the prequel presents several intriguing sequel possibilities involving Damien’s future and the living witnesses who know his true identity. The First Omen is playing in theaters now.