The Pope’s Exorcist: Alex Essoe, Daniel Zovatto join Russell Crowe in supernatural thriller

Last month, it was announced that Russell Crowe had signed on to star in a supernatural thriller called The Pope’s Exorcist, which will be directed by Overlord‘s Julius Avery. Now Deadline reports that Crowe is being joined in the cast by Alex Essoe (Starry Eyes) and Daniel Zovatto (It Follows). Details on the characters Essoe and Zovatto will be playing were not revealed, but we do know that Crowe is taking on the role of Father Gabriele Amorth.

Amorth was a real-life exorcist who passed away in 2016 at the age of 91. A few years ago, The Exorcist director William Friedkin made a documentary about Amorth, and you can read our review of The Devil and Father Amorth at THIS LINK.

The Pope’s Exorcist is set up at Screen Gems. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company acquired the rights to tell the story of the exorcist’s life from Michael Patrick Kaczmarek and faith-based media company Loyola Productions. That deal included rights to Amorth’s two international bestselling memoirs An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories, as well as other “detailed accounts of his exploits of pulling the devil out of people all over the world.”

Crowe will portray real-life figure Father Gabriele Amorth, a priest who acted as chief exorcist of the Vatican and who performed more than 100,000 exorcisms in his lifetime. Amorth wrote two memoirs and detailed his experiences battling Satan and demons that had clutched people in their evil.

Avery will be directing The Pope’s Exorcist from a screenplay by Evan Spiliotopoulos, with revisions by Chuck MacLean. The script was based on original drafts by Chester Hastings & R. Dean McCreary, which received revisions from Michael Petroni.

Scott Strauss, Michael Bitar, and Giselle Johnson are overseeing this project for Screen Gems. The film is being produced by Michael Patrick Kaczmarek through his company Jesus & Mary, Loyola president Eddie Siebert, Doug Belgrad of 2.0 Entertainment, and Jeff Katz of Worldwide Katz.

Essoe and Zovatto are always solid additions to any cast, so I’m glad to hear they’re going to be in The Pope’s Exorcist, even if we don’t know anything about their characters. How does this project sound to you? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.