A couple weeks ago, it was announced that Precious director Lee Daniels and that film’s star Mo’Nique are reuniting on Daniels’ exorcism movie that was once going by the title Demon House. Now Deadline reports that Tasha Smith, who played the character Carol Hardaway on thirty-one episodes of the Daniels-created series Empire, is also joining the cast.
Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday star Andra Day has the lead role in the exorcism movie. Day is playing Ebony, “the mother of an Indiana family whose children purportedly became demonically possessed in a thriller inspired by an actual case.”
In a case widely covered at the time, Latoya Ammons and her three children experienced strange incidents in their Gary, IN, home that grew progressively worse, with the children levitating, becoming violent with one another and speaking in growls and deep voices with no recollection afterward. Skeptics abounded, but the Gary Police Department, Department of Child Services and the local church and hospital all became involved, filing reports that took the supernatural occurrences seriously. Officers, doctors and social workers said they witnessed many of the incidents, including one in which her 9-year-old son walked backward up a wall. The Indianapolis Star covered it closely as the Department of Child Services investigated it.
Also in the cast are Glenn Close, Rob Morgan, Caleb McLaughlin, and Aunjanue Ellis. Here’s come character information: “McLaughlin will play the son of Ebony, at an older age. Close will play Ebony’s mother. Morgan will play the boyfriend of Ebony. And Smith plays Asia, who is Ebony’s best friend.”
Octavia Spencer had been cast to play a clergy member who tries to help Day’s character navigate through the hauntings and the exorcisms, and Spencer is still mentioned in the new Deadline report, but it’s believed that she had to drop out of the project and was replaced by Mo’Nique.
Drafts of the screenplay were written by both Dave Coggeshall and Elijah Bynum, then Daniels rewrote it himself. Daniels is also producing the film with Tucker Tooley, Pam Williams, Todd Crites, and Jackson Nguyen. Greg Renker and Gregoire Gensollen are executive producing.
This exorcism film was purchased by Netflix for $65 million back in January.
Are you looking forward to Lee Daniels’ exorcism movie, which may or may not end up being called Demon House? Let us know by leaving a comment below.