Sony Screen Gems has acquired the exclusive rights to the life story of Father Gabriele Amorth, the real life exorcist who was the subject of THE EXORCIST director William Friedkin's recently released documentary THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH (pictured above). Included in the deal are the film rights to Amorth's memoirs An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories.
Amorth, who passed away in 2016, was a
legendary Italian priest who performed tens of thousands of exorcisms for the Vatican. He left behind a trove of detailed accounts of his exploits pulling the devil out of people all over the world.
By acquiring the rights to Amorth's story, Sony Screen Gems now has the material at hand to build a horror franchise around a real person and real events – much like New Line Cinema has built an entire cinematic universe around real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the lead characters in the CONJURING films.
Former New Line Cinema and Fox executive Jeff Katz is writing the screenplay for Sony Screen Gems' Father Amorth film, and will be executive producing it alongside Loyola Productions President Edward Siebert, S.J.
Screen Gems' Eriq Paquette will be overseeing the project, which is being produced by Michael Patrick Kaczmarek. Kaczmarek had been working to acquire the rights to Amorth's life story, personal writings, and case files for years, leading to this deal.
I haven't seen THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH yet, so I really don't know all that much about Father Amorth, but I can definitely see how Sony Screen Gems could turn this material into their own version of The Conjuring Universe.