Fessenden Off Del Toro’s Orphanage Remake
by Britt Hayes
Bloody-Disgusting has an update on Guillermo Del Toro’s The Orphanage, a remake of the Spanish horror film, El Orfanato. Director Larry Fessenden (The Last Winter) has stepped off the Del Toro-produced project, and New Line Cinema has replaced him with director Mark Pellington (the excellent Arlington Road, and the beautiful but not-so-good Mothman Prophecies).
Pellington will still direct from the script penned by Del Toro and Fessenden, making this sound like more of a timing or scheduling issue than a difference of vision. The Orphanage has been in the works since 2007, shortly after the release of the original Spanish film, which Del Toro also produced.
The original film told the story of Laura, played by Belén Rueda, a mother who brings her adopted son Simón and her husband Carlos back to the home where she was raised to open an orphanage for the handicapped. Soon after arriving, Simón – who has HIV – tells his mother he’s made some invisible friends.
