The Choice for Days of Our Lives’ Next Peacock Movie Is a Devil of an Easy One to Make
NBC’s digital streaming service Peacock is the perfect platform for Johnny’s movie.
Days of Our Lives is no stranger to taking its stories digital to further explore what’s going on off screen with some of its fans’ favorite characters. The powers that be have already done it with Chad and Abby in Paris and The Last Blast Reunion. More recently, they launched Beyond Salem and, this past December, their first-ever movie, A Very Salem Christmas.
The NBC soap currently has the perfect opportunity for its next movie, and that’s Possessed: The Marlena Evans Story! Aspiring film director Johnny DiMera originally wanted to use his brother Will’s script based on the story of their mother Sami’s life for his movie. He even cast various family members in familiar roles, including his twin sister Allie as their mother.
Above: John worried that Johnny’s film would bring up old demons for Marlena, and it did!
However, after watching The Exorcist with Chanel over Halloween, Johnny got the brilliant idea to scrap Will’s script and rewrite it focusing solely on Marlena’s possession. He unknowingly invited back into their lives the devil, who… well, repossessed Marlena. After John was able to drive Satan out of his beloved Doc once again, this time with Marlena’s son Father Eric’s help, Johnny agreed to drop the idea of the movie altogether.
Above: The devil isn’t so easily defeated, and neither are Hollywood producers who love remakes!
However, several turns of events have brought the movie back into the spotlight. TR Coates, Paulina’s ex and Lani’s biological father, showed up in Salem as Johnny’s movie producer. He wanted the picture made and wasn’t about to let Johnny abandon what he felt was a gold mine — he even imagined several sequels. Combined with the fact that Johnny has recently become possessed by the devil, which nobody yet knows, the movie could be a perfect way for the master of hell to wreak even more havoc in Salem. More importantly, for fans, it could be a deliciously evil, yet fun, treat.
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Just as Days of Our Lives‘ Christmas movie was a spoof of Hallmark Christmas movies, Johnny’s movie needs to be a B-movie horror parody rather than the serious drama he intended. And it absolutely must recreate some of the pivotal scenes from the original possession storyline shot by shot and using the original scripts. This should include all the over-the-top ’90s fashions, sets, hair and make-up. The NBC sudser recently employed a similar tactic to explain Gwen’s backstory, in which Cady McClain (then Jennifer) portrayed her mother Laura and Marci Miller (Abby) played her mother Jen. It was camptastically delicious and oodles of fun to watch.
Above: “Whatever, Mother! Take a chill pill!”
For those who are having trouble recalling the original possession storyline, or missed it altogether, it ran from the spring of 1995 through that summer. John and Marlena were not a couple then. In fact, this was when John was involved with Kristen, who was nothing like the scheming DiMera she is now. She was a social worker fighting against the system for the rights of the everyday Joe and going by her parents’ surname Blake.
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It was during this time that John discovered that part of his forgotten past included the fact that he was a priest. Spoiler alert! As with much of John’s history, the storyline was rewritten and he was never a member of the flock. It was a scam and part of his days as Stefano’s pawn working with Princess Gina to steal precious works of European art.
Marlena, who was single, was living in the penthouse that John had graciously gifted her. They had no idea that Stefano, who had secretly returned to Salem, was living next door. Taking a page out of The Phantom of the Opera, Stefano created a secret passage into Marlena’s bedroom through her wardrobe (see below).
Stefano visited Marlena nightly, using hypnotic techniques and speaking to her while she slept to convince her that she loved him. He began calling her his Queen of the Night. Unfortunately, Stefano’s attempt to brainwash her into falling in love with him only left her soul open for the taking, and the devil swept in.
Above: John and Marlena were in a battle back then, not just for her soul, but for the wildest hair possible.
Taken over by Satan, Marlena began anonymously terrorizing Salem and quickly became referred to publicly as The Desecrator, given that she often targeted and defaced holy places. This included Saint Luke’s church, which she eventually set aflame. And if you thought the latest possession story was wild, it paled in comparison to the original.
Back then, viewers watched Marlena transform into a panther to terrorize Kristen, who was one of the first to realize what was going on. MarDevil, the nickname viewers gave her due to this storyline, also conjured up a swarm of bees and sicked them on poor Shawn. The most over-the-top point came when she transformed into a demon and threw Stefano off her penthouse balcony (see below)!
Once everyone realized Marlena was possessed, John teamed up with Father Francis to try and perform an exorcism on Doc. During the episodes which followed, she levitated above her bed and even conjured up the ghost of John’s dead wife Isabella to try and tempt him.
This was similar to what MarDevil recently did during her second possession when she tried to get John to break his vows to Marlena by sleeping with Kristen (suddenly Eileen Davidson instead of Stacy Haiduk). In fact, in 1995, MarDevil also transformed herself into Kristen after performing a Satanic ritual over her nude body (see below).
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Above: The only thing Marlena didn’t do back then was projectile-vomit split-pea soup at everyone.
Just as with Marlena’s most recent exorcism, her friends and family gathered to help John fight off the devil. And if fans had thought they had seen it all, they hadn’t as Marlena flew around the room taunting them all (see below).
The audience was stunned by the conclusion of the story when the exorcism took too much of a toll on Marlena’s frail body and she perished. However, as we all know, dead is never dead on a soap opera. Refusing to give up, John fought the devil one last time in, of all places, the Salem morgue, where Marlena’s corpse was reanimated by evil.
After vanquishing the lord of hell, and receiving a message from the archangel Gabriel, John carried Marlena’s lifeless body from the morgue to the church, where everyone had gathered to pray. He walked her up to the altar and begged God to show them his awesome powers, which he did when Marlena was miraculously resurrected (see below).
Back then, though, the devil didn’t return and enter someone else’s body as he has done more recently. No, it would take more than 25 years, and Johnny’s movie, to bring evil back to Salem.
What do you think, Days of Our Lives fans? Would you tune in for a tongue-in-cheek remake of what is clearly the wildest storyline the soap ever did? Or would you rather NBC use its digital platform to re-air the original episodes altogether?
Before you go, be sure to check out the craziest plots the soaps have ever pulled off.
Video: YouTube/SuperJamfan/Funny Woman
