‘The Exorcist’ Getting New Sequel From ‘Halloween’ Revival Team

The Exorcist is getting a new sequel nearly 50 years after the original was released, and the team behind the Halloween revival trilogy will be at the helm. Recently, Blumhouse Productions president Jason Blum spoke with Den Of Geek about what the company has in the works, and he revealed a new Exorcist film is in development. Blum explained that the project is being developed by David Gordon Green, co-writer and director of Halloween (2018), as well as its forthcoming sequels Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022).

“[It’s] going to be like David’s Halloween sequel,” Blum told Den of Geek. “I think it’s going to pleasantly surprise all the skeptics out there. We had a lot of skeptics about Halloween and David turned them around, and I think he’s going to turn it around with The Exorcist.” Blumhouse is a producer of Green’s new Halloween series and will be working with him on The Exorcist. This project had previously been rumored to be in the works, but Blum’s new interview is the first official confirmation that it is happening.

The new Halloween series is a direct continuation of the story from the first Halloween film released in 1978. It ignores everything sequel and reboot film that came afterward and picks up the story 40 years after Michael Myers first stalked the sleepy, fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. The concept, it seems, is to do the same with The Exorcist, setting aside the continuity laid out in its sequels and the critically acclaimed, albeit short-lived, Fox series based on the movie.

“I love to do [these] kinds of movies because people are very emotional about it,” Blum said of the iconic franchise revivals. “I think it’s a high bar and it’s a challenge to do the movie. Remember, most of the audience coming to this—95 percent of the audience who will, if we do our job right, come to see this movie—will not have seen the first Exorcist or even heard of it.”

Blum went on to add, “I want to make a movie that works for both [audiences]. I want to make a movie for people that know and love the first Exorcist and are furious that we’re doing this, but somehow drag themselves to the theater. I want them to come out happy. And I want to make a movie that people who’ve never heard of The Exorcist really enjoy. I think David did that with Halloween. I think he’ll do that with The Exorcist also.”