David Gordon Green's Halloween Kills is the cover story in the latest issue of Total Film magazine, but while talking to Total Film the director (who also directed Halloween 2018, which you can watch HERE) took a moment to confirm that the Exorcist project he's developing for Morgan Creek and Blumhouse Productions is indeed a sequel to the 1973 classic The Exorcist (watch that one HERE). Not only that, but Green feels the new film fits in comfortably with all of the other Exorcist movies… So maybe we should start referring to this as The Exorcist 5. Or 6, if we count both versions of the prequel…
Green told Total Film,
The Exorcist has been written. That was one of my pandemic projects. It’s not inaccurate [that it will be a sequel to the original film]. I like all the Exorcist movies. And not only do I like them, I think they can all fall into the acceptable mythology for what I’m doing. It’s not like I’m saying, 'Pretend that The Exorcist 2 never happened.' That’s fine to exist. They’re all fine to exist, and I enjoy all of them."
It's very rare to see someone say they like every movie in the Exorcist franchise. Green went on to say that diving into the world of The Exorcist is a bit more complicated than expanding the Halloween series.
It’s another fun legacy to be a part of, and hopefully we’ll get that going in the near future. That one is a lot of research, rather than just impulsive screenwriting. That’s one that you talk to a lot of people. You read a lot of books, and do a shit-load 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."
Directed by William Friedkin and based on the novel by William Peter Blatty (who also wrote the screenplay), The Exorcist told the story of
a 12-year-old girl who’s possessed by a mysterious entity and the lengths her mother and two Catholic priests go to in an attempt to save her.
The film starred Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, and Max von Sydow. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and took home the gold for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was followed by Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977, The Exorcist III in 1990, the prequel Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004 and the alternative Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist in 2005, plus a television series that ran for two seasons between 2016 and 2018.
We'll keep you updated on Green's sequel as it moves forward. He'll probably be making Halloween Ends before he gets around to The Exorcist… and somewhere in there, he's also planning to direct episodes of a Hellraiser series for HBO Max.