Child actress Olivia Marcum, a newcomer who has played Matilda on stage in Matilda The Musical, has joined the cast of director David Gordon Green’s sequel to the 1973 classic The Exorcist (watch it HERE), Deadline reports. Details on the role Marcum will be playing in the film have not been revealed. Her co-stars in the film include the previously announced Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), Lidya Jewett (Nightbooks), Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale), and original Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn, reprising the role of Chris MacNeil in the film. Although Green’s The Exorcist didn’t officially enter production until the end of 2022, Burstyn was at the center of eight days of filming that took place in 2021. (As both she and Green have confirmed.)
Green, who just finished working on a trilogy of Halloween sequels, intends this film to be the first entry in a new trilogy of Exorcist sequels. He crafted the story for The Exorcist 2023 with Peter Sattler (Broken Diamonds), then wrote the screenplay with Danny McBride (who wrote all three of the new Halloweens with him) and their Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems. Story 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.
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, McBride, and Couper Samuelson serve as executive producers. Ryan Turek is overseeing the project for Blumhouse.
Green’s The Exorcist is scheduled to be released on October 13, 2023. Are you looking forward to seeing the movie, and finding out who Olivia Marcum is playing in it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
With Green’s approach to the Halloween movies in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Marcum replacing Linda Blair in flashbacks to the possession of Chris MacNeil’s daughter Regan. But that’s just speculation, her character might not have anything to do with Regan.