Blumhouse and Universal Pictures are summoning horror maestro Mike Flanagan in order to try and resurrect the fortunes of their ambitious and expensive Exorcist reboot series.
Deadline reports that the Haunting of Hill House and Haunting of Bly Manor director is in talks to take the clerical collar from The Exorcist: Believer‘s David Gordon Green, who departed the franchise when that film underwhelmed at the box-office.
The second installment of the rebooted franchise, The Exorcist: Deceiver, which was meant to release on April 18, 2025, has now been removed from Universal’s schedule.
This would be the second iconic horror IP that Flanagan has tackled following his terrific The Shining-sequel Doctor Sleep, which wowed critics and genre fans, but failed to find an audience, tapping out with just $72M WW in 2019.
When Universal paid the unholy sum of $400 million for the rights to The Exorcist they were hoping that Gordon Green could steer a new franchise to the kind of financial success they’d seen with their Halloween trilogy, but 2023’s The Exorcist: Believer was cast out by fans and critics alike, earning a below-expectations $65 million at the North American box-office, and $136.2 million globally.
SEE ALSO: The Exorcist at 50: Looking back at the iconic horror masterpiece
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