ORPHAN (JAUME COLLETE-SERRA, 2009)

SYNOPSISOrphan is directed by Jaume Collete-Serra the story written by Alex Pace, the screenplay written by David Johnson, and was produced by Joel Silver and Susan Downey who produce films for Dark Castle Entertainment.

The plot of Orphan is the story of a seemingly innocent girl, named Esther who is played by Isabelle Furhman who is adopted from an orphanage by two parents who have two children and recently lost their own child to a stillbirth, which is part of the reason the wanted to adopt. Once Esther arrives at the house, the mother, named Kate, played by Vera Farmiga notices a stream of unusual and deadly events which she believes is caused by Esther, the events are too awful to be ignored, and once the two children realise what Esther is doing, it is just the father, named John, played by Peter Sarsgaard who needs to be convinced. This leads up to serious consequences and eventually a shocking twist.

WHICH STUDIOS WERE INVOLVED IN THE MAKING OF THE FILM?Dark Castle Entertainment was the main studio that helped finance and produce Orphan. Other studios which helped with Orphan being produced and distributed include Appian Way, Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures, Studio Canal, DCP Orphan Productions, Don Carmody Productions.

Dark Castle Entertainment are not as well known as other studios but have produced other famous films such as Splice and House of Wax. Dark Castle Entertainment was created by Robert Zemeckis, Susan Downey, Gilbert Alder and Joel Silver. They also released their first film in 1999, named House on Haunted Hill. Dark Castle Entertainment originally only wanted to pay tribute to famous director William Castle and to remake his films.

PROMOTIONFirstly, Orphan was promoted by a two minute long trailer. This could be seen on both the TV and on websites like YouTube, this helped a lot because the amount of people that watch TV and use websites like YouTube is extraordinary so the fact that Orphan was being released to cinema would have been noticed by a lot of people. There was also a poster created to advertise along with the slogan ‘you’ll never guess her secret’ this will want to make people see it even more because they want to find out what this ‘secret’ is. There was also an official website for Orphan. The website includes the trailer, stills, names of characters. This helped promote because it increased the excitement of the film which could have helped it go viral. If people are excited about the film, they will tell their friends and family about it. There is also a Facebook page for Orphan, which people could ‘like’ and see new forms of advertisements such as new posters which were being released. There was also an Apple app for Orphan which fans of the film would buy, it played sounds from the movie. This would get the movie across to a lot of people when they see it on the app store. Orphan has also been released onto DVD and Blu-ray, as well as it being available for purchase on iTunes, this is good promotion for the film. A lot of other people will see it as the most purchased list on iTunes. As well as it bringing in extra revenue. Orphan also had a premier in Westwood, California on the 21st July, 2009 which would have helped the word of the film go more viral. Isabelle Furgman playing Esther was a highlight of the movie to critics, if the actors are said to be good, people are more likely to go and see it.

SUCCESSOrphan was extremely successful, despite not being released in too many countries. It was released in the UK, USA and the Philippines. On it’s opening weekend, In the UK, Orphan made £570,146, in the US, it made $12,871,483 and in the Philippines it made PHP 4,296,429. So far, Orphan has grossed $76,699,632 worldwide.

The release date clearly was not to important. It was released to cinema on the 24 th July, 2009 in the US, a summer month, it is not typically a month associated with scare. However, the DVD was released on the 27 th October, 2009, just before Halloween. So people at this point will be looking for a scary film to watch.

HOME RELEASEOrphan was released on DVD and blu-ray on the 27 th October, 2009 in the US and exactly a month later in the UK. It was also released onto iTunes to purchase.

If you purchased the film on DVD or blue-ray, you got the option to watch the alternative ending which was cut from the film. As well as this, in the ‘deleted scenes’ section there are a variety of scenes which were filmed but never made the final cut of the film.