‘Orphan’ movie’s Esther actress returns in its upcoming prequel film. Orphan (2009) became a surprise horror mystery hit with $78 million grossed at the box office against a reported budget of $20 million. The majority of the film’s success should be attributed to the creepy lead performance of the then 13-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman as the adopted orphan “girl” terrorizing her new parents, played by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard.
To everyone’s surprise, the film did not immediately launch a franchise, pertaining to its box office success. Ten years after the first movie terrified audiences, ‘Orphan’, is getting a much-delayed prequel, with Fuhrman returning in the role that made bought her fame. Horror movie specialist William Brent Bell (The Boy) will handle helming duties, working on a script by David Coggeshall (Scream: The TV Series). Julia Stiles has also joined the movie’s cast, alongside Rossif Sutherland.
Esther (or Orphan: First Kill, depending on which report one believes) reportedly concerns Fuhrman’s character escaping from a mental hospital in Estonia and going to America where she impersonates the missing daughter of a wealthy couple. Fuhrman herself has now given a small insight of the movie via her Instagram with a pair of behind-the-scenes images, one of which promises a very bloody affair indeed.
Going by the brief plot synopsis that’s been offered, it seems Esther’s story will be told before she came to live with the family of the original film. Of course, it’s somewhat weird to think that Fuhrman, who is now 23, will be playing the same character in the prequel that she played in the original film at the age of 13, a character who suffered from a hormonal disorder that only made her appear to be a little 9-year-old girl. In order to make this all work, the new movie reportedly will infuse a combination of forced perspective shots and makeup, the difficulty of making Fuhrman look young enough at the age of 23, is probably one of the reasons it took so long to produce an ‘Orphan’ follow-up in the first place. It remains to be seen how Fuhrman’s transformation will be as Esther offers up yet another spin on the enduringly popular creepy kid horror sub-genre.
Text by: Sreyoshi Sil, IBTN9
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