The Exorcist: Believer heading for franchise record opening weekend

We’ve seen what director David Gordon Green and Blumhouse Productions could do with the Halloween franchise, three times over. Now we’re going to see what they can do with the Exorcist franchise when The Exorcist: Believer reaches theatres this Friday, October 6th. This movie is meant to be the start of a new trilogy of Exorcist sequels, and Universal Pictures and Peacock forked over an amount somewhere in the range of $400 million to acquire the rights to distribute this trilogy… so they’re probably very glad to hear that the film is tracking to have a franchise record-breaking opening weekend.

Deadline reports that The Exorcist: Believer, which will be playing on 3600 screens, is expected to have a domestic opening weekend in the 30 to 36 million range. Currently, the R-rated reboot/sequel is trending demo-wise like The Nun 2, which saw a $32.6M opening, meaning it’s great with the 18-34 demographic, Hispanic and Latino audiences as well as older guys. Nun 2 skewed a tad more female at 52%, and it’s expected that this David Gordon Green-directed Exorcist installment will be around an even split as well. Universal will have Imax and PLF screens with previews starting Thursday at 5 p.m. We hear production cost of The Exorcist: Believer is $30M before P&A. … Even if Exorcist: Believer opens in the high-$20Ms, Uni/Blumhouse/Morgan Creek still could call it a record opening for the franchise. National opening weekends weren’t recorded by the industry back in 1973, when the original The Exorcist opened, that pic ultimately grossing $233M stateside and landing Oscars for Best Sound and William Peter Blatty’s adapted screenplay. The Exorcist III opened to $9.3M in 1990, by far the biggest debut for a movie in the franchise to date, and legged out to $26M. The 2000 re-release of the original pic was a cash cow at the fall box office, bowing to $8.1M and grossing $39.4M.

Green crafted the story for The Exorcist: Believer with Danny McBride (who wrote all three of the new Halloweens with him) and their Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems, then wrote the screenplay with Peter Sattler (Broken Diamonds). Here’s the synopsis: Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding has raised their daughter on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine, disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.

Ellen Burstyn reprises the role of Chris MacNeil, the character she played in the 1973 classic The Exorcist, “an actress who has been forever altered by what happened to her daughter Regan five decades before.” An interview with Burstyn is included in the new featurette. She is joined in the cast by Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) as Victor, Lidya Jewett (Nightbooks) as Angela, and newcomer Olivia O’Neill as Angela’s friend Katherine. Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale) plays Victor and Angela’s neighbor, and Jennifer Nettles (The Righteous Gemstones) and Norbert Leo Butz (Fosse/Verdon) play Katherine’s parents. Original The Exorcist star Linda Blair is in there as well, reprising the role of Chris MacNeil’s daughter Regan.

Okwui Okpokwasili (Master) is also in the cast as Doctor Beehibe, and Raphael Sbarge (Carnosaur) plays a pastor.

The Exorcist: Believer is being produced by Jason Blum, David Robinson, and James Robinson. Green, McBride, Stephanie Allain, and Couper Samuelson serve as executive producers. Ryan Turek is overseeing the project for Blumhouse.

Universal has already announced a release date for the second entry in this trilogy. The Exorcist: Deceiver will be reaching theatres on April 18, 2025.

My anticipation level for The Exorcist: Believer is at just about zero, but I’ll be watching it at some point.

Are you looking forward to The Exorcist: Believer, and will you be contributing to its opening weekend? Let us know by leaving a comment below.