“The Exorcist” is not a movie you’d think of as being a franchise starter, and yet it has a fantastic sequel (“The Exorcist III“) and a vastly underrated TV series. This year, reports emerged that Morgan Creek Entertainment was planning a reboot of the film, but if you thought original director William Friedkin would be involved in the new project, think again.
READ MORE: ‘Leap of Faith’: A Reverential Look At William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’ [Review]
Friedkin took to Twitter earlier this week to clarify rumors that he’d be involved. “There’s a rumor on IMDB that I’m involved with a new version Of ‘The Exorcist,'” the director tweeted. “This isn’t a rumor, it’s a flat-out lie. There’s not enough money or motivation in the world To get me to do this.”
Indeed, Friedkin has not returned to any of the five “The Exorcist” spin-offs or sequels, the last of which was the Paul Schrader-directed “Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.” That being said, Friedkin did return to the possession genre with the 2017 documentary “The Devil and Father Amorth,” which followed Chief Exorcist of the Vatican, Father Gabriele Amorth as he performs his ninth exorcism. Similarly, Alexandre O. Philippe‘s recent documentary “Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist” provided plenty of fascinating stories and anecdotes about the making of the 1973 horror classic.
The original “The Exorcist” was a huge success, earning ten Academy Award nominations, including becoming the first horror film to earn a Best Picture nod, and even went home with Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound Mixing. And as a reminder, the Fox TV series from 2017 was, together with the “Hannibal” show, one of the best examples of how to take a popular property and actually add to the mythology with a new story that paid homage to the original in interesting ways.