It’s a few days before the theatrical release of Orphan: First Kill, the anticipated prequel to 2009’s psychological horror Orphan, but director William Brent Bell is more than ready to kick things into high gear by establishing a franchise.
In an interview with MovieWeb, the director and screenwriter shared that he would love to keep exploring with the titular character “forever,” and a third film would definitely tell a more rounded story.
“I think a franchise is three movies, is how you can tell maybe a full story, and you can always continue after that. But I feel a trilogy can tell a full story… with this story, we get to see a different side to her [Esther], but we still don’t know much about the years before… and so, there’s a lot of story there, to me and everybody. We kind of played around and talked about a lot of ideas as we were making the movie, with Isabelle especially. If we can pull this movie off — and Isabelle is so passionate about the character — it’s like, you can play this character forever if you wanted to, if we can do it in this movie… there’s a lot to that character, and I think in the future stories, she would probably become a bit more cold-hearted again.”
Hopefully, the anticipated success of the upcoming film will give life to more stories to be told. With a chilling performance by Fuhrman, there’s no telling what could lie in store for the character moving forward.
Orphan: First Kill will be released in select theaters and on the streaming platform Paramount+ on Aug. 19 and will also feature Julia Stiles and Rossif Sutherland as Tricia and Allen Albright, respectively.