In recent years, Jason Blum, founder of Blumhouse Productions, has been leading the way when it comes to horror franchises. His studio has seen success with original stories, such as The Purge, and has also been behind successful reboots of classic horror movies like Halloween and The Invisible Man. Blum has now set his eyes on one of the best movies of all time, The Exorcist, and is positive that he can make a trilogy that will be “really scary” and “reinvent” the franchise.
In August 2020, it was announced that Blumhouse would be giving The Exorcist the same legacy reboot treatment that John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise got in 2018. The Halloween reboot, directed by David Gordon Green, was a massive success and earned over $255 million at the worldwide box office. Like Halloween (2018), the new Exorcist movies will be a direct sequel to the first film set decades later – a “requel” that retcons the series and makes all past sequels non-canon.
In an interview with CinePOP, Blum revealed that he hopes the upcoming Exorcist movies will see similar success since he plans to use the same formula that he did for the Halloween reboot.
“What I hope to do with The Exorcist is the same thing we did with Halloween,” Blum said. “Halloween, the first movie was great, and the second movie was okay, and the rest of them were not very good. And then we came in and kind of re-jiggered it, and people liked it, so I hope we can do the same thing with The Exorcist.”
“Everyone thinks we’re going to fall on our face, but I think we have the same filmmaker, the same writer, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride,” he explained. “And I think we’ll reinvent The Exorcist so that it’ll feel fresh, new, different, but, you know, related to the first movie, but also really, really scary.”
Although we don’t know how Blum plans to “reinvent” The Exorcist movies, it seems as if Universal is confident in his vision. The studio has reportedly spent close to $400 million for a trilogy, hinting that Blum isn’t the only one who thinks the flicks will succeed.
The Exorcist reboot is scheduled to open on October 13, 2023. In the meantime, the next instalment in the Halloween Franchise, Halloween Kills, is set to release this year on October 15 in cinemas, across the UK and US. US viewers will also be able to watch Halloween Kills on the streaming service Peacock the same day.