This will be hard to believe, but a prequel to Orphan, the bizarrely entertaining Jaume Collet-Serra thriller from 2009, is actually happening. It is a real thing thing out there in the world and casting right now. How do we know? Because not only is original star Isabelle Fuhrman coming back, which is strange unto itself, but Julia Stiles is in it, too. That latter point guarantees I’m invested, but even if she wasn’t, how the heck are they going to make this Fuhrman thing work?
Well, here’s the deal: Orphan starred then 12-year-old Fuhrman as Esther, an Eastern European orphan adopted by a couple played by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard. However, Farmiga’s character began to suspect Esther was up to something evil, and she was right. Esther, who it turns out isn’t actually a child but an adult with a hormonal disorder that has stunted her growth, is also a serial killer who hops from family-to-family. Oh, and Esther dies, quite convincingly, at the end of the movie.
So here we are with the prequel, titled Orphan: First Kill. Fuhrman, who is now 23-year-old, will return as Esther, real name Leena Klammer. How are they going to make her look like a little girl again? Deadline says director William Brent Bell (The Boy) will use “a combination of forced perspective shooting and a world-class makeup team.”
The story will find Esther escaping from an Estonian psychiatric ward and journeying to America where she impersonates the daughter of a wealthy family, only to face a mother who will do anything to protect them. Presumably, Stiles will play that mother.
Fuhrman’s career took off after Orphan, going on to appear in The Hunger Games, After Earth, and Masters of Sex. She will be seen next in Escape Room 2. Stiles was most recently seen in Hustlers, and coming up for her is Austin Stark’s The God Committee. She’s done this sort of thing before, as she was terrorized by an orphan in 2006’s The Omen remake.
