Director David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer was originally planned to be the first film in a planned trilogy from Blumhouse and Universal, part of a multi million dollar deal to bring the franchise back to life on the big screen with the sequel The Exorcist: Deceiver scheduled for release on April 18, 2025.
However THR reports this afternoon that David Gordon Green will no longer be directing The Exorcist: Deceiver, and that Universal and Blumhouse are actively seeking a new director.
According to the site, Gordon Green is exiting The Exorcist: Deceiver as director because he’s busy working on feature film Nutcrackers and TV series The Righteous Gemstones.
Last year, Green’s The Exorcist: Believer was a major disappointment at the box office. Universal shelled out a huge $400 million for rights to the iconic horror franchise and planned a trilogy of films. Believer topped out at $136.2 million globally, including just $65.5 million domestically
The first film in the trilogy was released theatrically on October 13, 2023, with Leslie Odom Jr. starring alongside a returning Ellen Burstyn from the original classic.
“Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.) has raised their daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before.”
The final moments of The Exorcist: Believer brought Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil back into the fold, seeming to suggest that the legacy character could return in future installments.
The Exorcist: Deceiver was set to hit theaters on April 18, 2025 but is now unset. Instead, Universal will use that date to handle the international rollout of Lionsgate’s Antoine Fuqua-directed Michael Jackson biopic Michael.
Ellen Burstyn reveals why she is returning to The Exorcist franchise
Get your copy of The Exorcist: Believer [Blu-ray] [2023] [Region Free] on Amazon UK Now.
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