Blumhouse seem to be making it their mission to have a hand in as many of the biggest horror franchises as possible, as hot on the heels of their own creations such as The Purge and Paranormal Activity and with the Halloween reboot under their belt, Jason Blum’s company are now setting their eyes on injecting some new blood into The Exorcist franchise. The project will take the same angle as the 2018 revival of Michael Myers, continuing the story of the original Exorcist movie and effectively wiping out the sequels that followed, or if you want to go with a popular trend, then it could be seen as creating a branching reality that takes the story down a new route.
The Exorcist reboot is a legacy sequel that will be set decades after the 1973 classic, and will see Blum joining forces with director David Gordon Green. In a new interview with CinePOP, Blum delved into more detail about the project, and he had some strong words for those who are expecting Blumhouse to mess up the story of demonic possession.
“What I hope to do with The Exorcist is the same thing we did with Halloween,” Blum said. “Halloween, the first movie was great, and the second movie was okay, and the rest of them were not very good. And then we came in and kind of re-jiggered it, and people liked it, so I hope we can do the same thing with The Exorcist. Everyone thinks we’re gonna fall on our face, but I think, we have the same filmmaker, the same writer, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride. And I think we’ll reinvent The Exorcist so that it’ll feel fresh, new, different, but, you know, related to the first movie, but also really, really scary.”
According to Jason Blum though, there are not just plans for this film though, but a new trilogy very similar again to how the new Halloween movies have been handled. From what is known so far, Hamilton‘s Leslie Odom Jr. will star as the father of a child possessed by a demon, and in desperation he turns to Chris MacNeil, played again by Ellen Burstyn reprising her original role. While Linda Blair played Burstyn’s daughter Regan in the original movie, she has already confirmed that, currently, she is not part of the new cycle of movies.
“That one is a lot of research, rather than just impulsive screenwriting,” Green said to Total Film about The Exorcist script. “That’s one that you talk to a lot of people. You read a lot of books, and do a sh-tload of interviews. There was such a dramatic authenticity to what that original film is. It’s a lot more than I anticipated getting into it. And I guess I was naive to think that. But it was very exhilarating to be involved in a lot of those conversations that you find yourself in.”
The new Exorcist trilogy was picked up by Universal and Peacock in a lucrative $400 million plus deal, while rights holders Morgan Creek Entertainment are also part of the production team along with Blumhouse. The first movie of the trilogy currently has a release date of October 13th, 2023, and if they line up sequels in a similar fashion to their Halloween movies, we can expect another two following in the subsequent few years. This comes to us from CinePOP.