Penchant Entertainment has snapped up the rights to Father Malachi Martin’s bestselling book Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans, with a view to adapting the source material across various feature and TV projects.
“Since its publication, Hostage to the Devil has been the canonical book on possession and exorcism and we are thrilled to finally be able to bring it to life,” said Erin Eggers of Penchant (via THR). “With such vibrant, character-rich material at our disposal, our goal is to shatter genre expectations and reset the bar for elevated supernatural fare.”
Published in 1976, Hostage to the Devil “presents exorcism as an epic battle between priest and demon, showing how the fight can be personal in nature and can span a lifetime, exacting an enormous toll on the priest, who sacrifices a piece of his humanity each time he confronts these demonic forces.”
Father Malachi Martin and his book were the subject of a Netflix documentary, titled Hostage to the Devil, which was released last year.
