The Pope’s Exorcist: Russell Crowe to play real-life priest in supernatural thriller

A few years ago, The Exorcist director William Friedkin made a documentary about real-life exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 91. (You can read our review of The Devil and Father Amorth at THIS LINK.) Now Russell Crowe has signed on to play Father Amorth in a supernatural thriller called The Pope’s Exorcist, which will be directed by Overlord‘s Julius Avery.

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 the 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.

Avery provided the following statement:

It’s been a goal of mine to work with Russell. To collaborate with him on the amazing Pope’s Exorcist is truly a dream come true.”

Watching Russell Crowe perform exorcisms should be entertaining, so I look forward to seeing how The Pope’s Exorcist is going to turn out. How does this project sound to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below.