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The Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn has given a damning assessment of the franchise’s prospects ahead of the release of a new sequel.
The 93-year-old actor played the mother of possessed child Regan (Linda Blair) in William Friedkin’s 1973 horror classic, but did not return for any of the sequels or prequels – until 2023, when she reprised the character in the critically scorned The Exorcist: Believer.
While that film was intended to be the first in a now-aborted trilogy, The Exorcist is being revived in a new film titled The Exorcist: Martyrs, directed by The Haunting of Hill House’s Mike Flanagan.
Asked by Variety about the new film, Burstyn suggested that there had already been “enough” Exorcist films.
“Isn’t there enough already of the Exorcist thing? It’s enough already,” she told the outlet.
The cast for the film has already been announced, with Scarlett Johansson set to star as a police detective, alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor as a prison chaplain.
Among the supporting cast are Diane Lane, Jacobi Jupe, Sasha Calle, Scoot McNairy, and Gil Bellows, as well as Laurence Fishburne and John Leguizamo.
Flanagan has emerged as one of the most popular up-and-coming filmmakers in the horror genre, thanks largely to his Netflix miniseries Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, and films such as the Stephen King adaptation Doctor Sleep.
“The Exorcist is one of the reasons I became a filmmaker, and it is an honour to have the chance to try something fresh, bold, and terrifying within its universe,” he previously said of Martyrs.
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Flanagan was also behind the recent serialised adaptation of King’s classic Carrie on Prime Video this year.
Speaking to The Independent, Flanagan addressed criticism of the horror genre’s over-reliance on “existing IP” [intellectual property].
“Like anything else it can be done with love, or it can be done cynically – and I completely agree there are times when people are trying to wring every last penny from something and that makes us demand, rightfully so, where are the original stories?” he said.
“But it’s so complicated – I’ve also seen the original stories be put up there and no one shows up to support them, whereas people come in droves to the familiar.”