Orphan movie’s Esther actress returns in a set photo from the upcoming prequel film. Released in 2009, Orphan became a surprise horror movie hit with $78 million grossed at the box office against a reported budget of $20 million. Much of the film’s success was of course due to the creepy lead performance of 13-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman as the adopted orphan "girl" terrorizing her new parents, played by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard.
Given its box office success, it’s perhaps more than a little surprising that Orphan did not immediately launch a franchise like other highly profitable horror properties. But now over ten years after the first movie terrified audiences, Orphan is getting a long-delayed prequel, with Fuhrman returning in the role that made her famous. Horror movie specialist William Brent Bell (The Boy) will handle helming duties, working from 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 psychiatric facility in Estonia and going to America where she impersonates the missing daughter of a wealthy couple. Fuhrman herself has now offered a further small tease of the movie via her Instagram with a pair of behind-the-scenes images, one of which promises a very bloody affair indeed. See the pictures in the space below:
After her break-out role as the creepy Esther in Orphan, Fuhrman went on to appearances in everything from The Hunger Games to the Stephen King adaptation Cell to the series Masters of Sex. In addition to the upcoming Orphan prequel, Fuhrman is also set to star in Escape Room 2, The Novice and The Last Thing Mary Saw, all of which fall into the thriller/horror category.
Going by the brief plot synopsis that’s been offered, it seems Esther (or whatever the movie ends up being called) will have a story very similar to the original Orphan. Of course, it’s somewhat bizarre 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 genetic disorder that only made her appear to be a small girl. In order to make this all work, the new movie reportedly will employ a combination of forced perspective shots and makeup (the difficulty of making Fuhrman look young enough is probably one reason it took so long to produce an Orphan follow-up in the first place). It remains to be seen how convincing Fuhrman’s transformation will be as Esther offers up yet another spin on the enduringly popular creepy kid horror sub-genre.
