DAMIEN: OMEN II
MOVIE ARTICLE

My Books and Movies!

E.C. McMullen Jr.
RUMOR

RUMOR: People are dying to know the truth

PERPETUAL
BULLET

"'Some People' ... may be the standout story in the book."
- John Grant, Infinityplus

E.C. McMullen Jr.
WILLOW BLUE

"'Willow Blue' will burrow under your skin and stay there long after you've put the book down."
- Jeffrey Reddick, Creator of
FINAL DESTINATION

IN OTHER BOOKS
E.C. McMullen Jr.'s
short story
CEDO LOOKED LIKE PEOPLE
in the anthology
FEAR THE REAPER

"This Ray Bradbury-esque is one of the most memorable and one of the more original stories I've read in a long time."
- Steve Isaak,
Goodreads

HORROR 201:
The Silver Scream

Filmmaker's Guidebook
featuring
RAY BRADBURY,
JOHN CARPENTER,
WES CRAVEN,
TOM HOLLAND,
E.C. McMULLEN Jr.,
GEORGE A. ROMERO,
and many more.

And In
CINEMA
E.C. McMullen Jr.
Head Production Designer

MINE GAMES
(Starring:
JOSEPH CROSS,
BRIANA EVIGAN,
ALEX MERAZ,
ETHAN PECK)

Production Designer

UNIVERSAL DEAD
(DOUG JONES,
D.B. SWEENEY,
GARY GRAHAM)

Art Director

THE CRUSADER
(COLIN CUNNINGHAM,
GARY GRAHAM)

Sequels used to be a bad thing and to this day many still are (THE PLANET OF THE APES, THE OMEN, ALIEN, GHOSTBUSTERS, JURASSIC PARK, you're probably already thinking about the titles I haven't mentioned. The history is exhaustive!). The bean-counting business concept behind a sequel made to bring in less money is the idea that the audience goodwill toward the original will sell it, so everything about it can be cheaper. Cheap advertising because the original will promote it to the fanbase. Low development, quick turn-around sequels with cheaper writers, directors, actors, and even an extra producer who doesn't care are all considered.

Why?

Because if the budget is low enough then the first weekend box office will probably put the movie into profit. It's even better if the studio owns full distribution rights and creative control of someone else's property, because the distributor controls the budget while collecting and dividing the gross: deciding who gets what and how much. That is, the major studio distributor can pay less for it and still have first cut of the box office returns: including all of it. Meaning that if the movie isn't profitable against its production budget (which the distributor spent little if anything to contribute toward), the major studio will be profitable, as they can point to poor box office returns as the reason the actual filmmakers / actors / shareholders are getting nothing doesn't quite break even.

The long string of once major studios that suckered their audience with cheap, intentionally bad sequels is a look into the archives of history, as they've nearly all died out or been devoured by their competitors: RKO, UA, MGM, Columbia Pictures, New World Pictures, Miramax, 20th Century Fox, Dimension Films, and plenty of the so-called Major Minors who set fire to the goodwill of their fans with garbage.

But there's another side of that coin.

20th Century Fox, stinging after the diminishing returns of having poorly shepherded their PLANET OF THE APES franchise, decided to spend about twice the budget for the THE OMEN sequel.

The studio raised the money for Oscar and Emmy award winning actors, William Holden and Lee Grant. Composer Jerry Goldsmith, who won an Oscar for his score for THE OMEN, also returned.

Unfortunately, Producer Harvey Bernhard was of the opinion that "sequels should be toned down, not up." Since he was also the main screenwriter for the sequel, he got his way. And if the director he hired had a different view on sequels? Stop production dead and waste a fortune of that bigger budget in finding a new director who will bow to Harvey!

This is the trouble that fell over production of DAMIEN: OMEN II.