20 Years Later, Why Has ‘The Omen’ (2006) Been Forgotten?
The Omen (2006) was a box office hit with a massive marketing campaign. So why does nobody talk about it today?
If you were alive in the summer of 2006, you probably remember The Omen. A remake of the 1976 classic, the film was released on June 6, 2006 and earned more than $12 million on opening day, setting a new record for the highest ever Tuesday gross at the time—$12,633,666 from 2,660 theaters, a figure that Bruce Snyder, the studio’s president of distribution, later admitted the studio “[had] a little fun” manipulating to include the number of the beast. It would go on to earn $120 million worldwide, making it one of the most successful entries in the strange (and mostly troubled) franchise.
Perhaps its success had something to do with the fact it had a brilliant marketing campaign–according to an article on The Guardian published just days before the film’s release, “more than twice the original film’s $2.8m budget has been spent on advertising and promotion.” Ominous billboards and posters were spotted across Los Angeles with messaging like “The Signs Are All Around You” and “You Have Been Warned,” featuring the date 6/6/06. Airplanes with similar banners flew above key spring break cities, terrifying so many beach goers that, in one instance, “a fighter jet was…dispatched to escort one of the planes down.”
Yet, despite being a box office success—it still ranks among the highest-grossing Tuesday openings in domestic box-office history—and boasting one of the most panic-inducing horror marketing campaigns of the 2000s, The Omen is rarely discussed today. Unlike contemporaneous remakes such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, , or , ‘s film has largely faded from memory. So, with its 20th anniversary approaching, I decided I’d revisit to figure out why—and determine if it’s worth a second look.
