Well, this isn’t much of a surprise given the recent box office result of 2023’s “Exorcist: Believer” movie, a reboot and legacy sequel to the original William Friedkin “Exorcist” movie from 1973 made by Blumhouse and Universal. Filmmaker David Gordon Green is exiting the franchise, the search is on for a new filmmaker, and in the interim, Universal has taken the sequel, “The Exorcist: Deceiver” sequel, off the calendar.
Green’s “Exorcist: Deceiver” was initially scheduled for an April 18, 2025 release; however, Universal has taken it off the calendar. Instead, Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson biopic, “Michael,” will fill that slot, a project where Universal controls distribution overseas.
“Exorcist: Believer” was a major dud at the box office last year, failing to cross $65 million domestically and only grossing $136.2 million worldwide, meaning the film failed to travel internationally in any major regard (read our review here, though it was a fascinating failure at least!).
Last we heard, the “Exorcist” franchise was headed for a creative overhaul precisely because of its box-office disappointment, and we already speculated this likely meant Green was going to leave the franchise.
Blumhouse chief Jason Blum dubbed ‘Believer’ “the riskiest movie I have ever made” because of its cost. Universal invested a whopping $400 million into their ‘Exorcist’ investment to own the rights to the franchise.
Obviously, that investment didn’t go as planned, and it was made in the wake of Blumhouse’s success on the “Halloween” franchise legacy sequel trilogy that Green directed in its entirety. The film was also made during the pandemic in the age when studios were in a frenzy to get content for their streaming services—“Halloween” proved to be a big subscription booster for Peacock.
But audiences mostly rejected the “Exorcist” film out of hand, and that high cost, it’s very little surprise that Universal pivoted to a new, probably broader, direction that wasn’t going to gel with the more artful care Green puts into his movies.
Green has already switched gears too, evidently pivoting to the Ben Stiller movie, “Nutcrackers,” as well as the fourth season of HBO’s religious comedy “The Righteous Gemstones,” which he produces and sometimes directs on too.
Maybe “Exorcist” takes a beat and waits until 2026. On the other hand, Blumhouse and their horror films move fast—see their “Wolfman” movie announced in December 2023 and already coming out fall 2024— so don’t be shocked if they find a replacement and maybe take a release date closer to Halloween in 2025 instead.