Director David Gordon Green’s trilogy of Halloween sequels – which he started with 2018’s Halloween and continued with Halloween Kills – wraps up with this weekend’s release of Halloween Ends… and he’s not going to have much a break before he moves over to directing a trilogy of sequels to the 1973 classic The Exorcist (watch it HERE). Speaking with Variety, Green revealed that his first Exorcist movie starts filming in “a couple weeks”!
Green told Variety, “We’ve got an amazing cast coming together and scripts we’re all excited about. [I’m] honored to step into something that’s so valuable within cinema history. And knowing that there is a fanbase that is curious, aware, alert, potentially concerned to see what we’re up to. What I like is, people say, ‘Is it stressful?’ No, it’s exciting because I spent so much of my life making movies, and you’re just begging an audience to tune in, or see what’s going on, or buy tickets to the movie. With these, I’ve got stories to tell, I’ve got an imagination to express, and the way I can do that within these movies is an incredible opportunity.“
Universal and Peacock paid an amount somewhere in the range of $400 million to acquire the rights to distribute this new Exorcist trilogy. Coming to us from Blumhouse Productions and Morgan Creek Entertainment, the films are being produced by Jason Blum, David Robinson, and James Robinson. Green, Danny McBride, and Couper Samuelson serve as executive producers. Ryan Turek is overseeing the project for Blumhouse.
Green crafted the story for The Exorcist 2023 with Peter Sattler (Broken Diamonds), then wrote the screenplay with McBride (who wrote all three of the new Halloweens with him) and their Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems.
Original Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn reprises the role of Chris MacNeil in the film – and has said that she already shot her scenes months ago. So Green got a bit of a head-start on this one. Burstyn is joined in the cast by Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) and Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale). Details are being kept under wraps, but we do know that Odom is playing a character who
tracks down Chris MacNeil after his child becomes possessed.
After seeing what Green has done with the Halloween franchise, are you looking forward to seeing what he’s going to do with the Exorcist franchise? Let us know by leaving a comment below. Green’s The Exorcist is scheduled to be released on October 13, 2023. One year from today!
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