Last July, it was announced that Blumhouse Productions, Morgan Creek, Universal, and Peacock were teaming up to bring us a trilogy of sequels to the 1973 classic The Exorcist (watch it HERE), with David Gordon Green, who has directed a trilogy Halloween sequels for Blumhouse and Universal, on board to direct all three of these Exorcist movies as well. Much like Halloween heroine Jamie Lee Curtis returned for Green’s Halloween sequels, Ellen Burstyn is being brought back to play her Exorcist character Chris MacNeil in the first of the new sequels, which is scheduled to be released on October 13, 2023 – just in time for the 50th anniversary of the original film. Green just recently wrapped production on his last Halloween movie, Halloween Ends, which will be getting a theatrical release this October, so we didn’t expect him to start filming The Exorcist yet… but during an interview with Daily Blast Live at the end of February, Burstyn revealed that she has already shot her scenes for the new Exorcist!
This Daily Blast Live interview slipped under our radar when it was conducted three months ago, but Twitter user jandry_says caught the Exorcist reference. Asked if she had any concerns about returning to The Exorcist and if anything weird happened on the set of the film, Burstyn replied,
On the new set, because I’ve already shot the new version, nothing weird happened, no. There was a lot of weirdness on the first one, but there’s a lot of weirdness in every movie.”
IMDb does claim that Green’s The Exorcist is filming, and has Nick Benas (The Girl from Plainville) and Nigel Barto (Terror Lake Drive) listed as cast members playing a Neighbor and a Nurse, respectively… but you never know who has added information to IMDb.
We do know that Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) stars in the film, playing a character who
tracks down Chris MacNeil after his child becomes possessed.
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.
Are you looking forward to seeing Ellen Burstyn return to the Exorcist franchise? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Here’s her interview with Daily Blast Live: