Following the disappointing response to The Exorcist: Believer, David Gordon Green has departed the planned sequel, which has been delayed indefinitely.
Here’s some news that seemed to be on the cards since last October when The Exorcist: Believer released to tepid reviews and grossed $136m worldwide.
That sum may sound like a reasonable haul, but it was considered to be a disappointment given that Green’s revival of Halloween, another classic horror franchise (back in 2018) picked up almost twice that amount at the global box office. It didn’t help that Universal had paid an exorbitant sum for the film rights to The Exorcist either – an eye-watering $400m that it was clearly keen to begin recouping.
It wasn’t long after the film’s release before we heard talk of a ‘creative reset’ and it seemed like the writing might be on the wall for David Gordon Green’s future with the franchise. That has now come to pass, with reports emerging via Deadline that Green has left the franchise to pursue ‘other projects’ and will no longer be helming the planned sequel, The Exorcist: Deceiver.
That sequel was slated to release on the 18th April 2025, but given that the project has no director and may even be facing a page one rewrite, it has been removed from Universal’s schedule entirely.
At the time of Believer's misfiring launch, there was a conversation about whether the studio could actually salvage its sizeable investment, considering how badly the first film went down. Whilst some speculated that Universal could find other ways to commercialise the name value of The Exorcist (such as theme park rides and movie tie-ins) it’s fair to say that a successful film series is the driver of interest in such things. Should the next project not enjoy the kind of success as the studio’s revamped Halloween films, there will be many speculating as to the size of the financial hit that Universal will be incurring.
As for Green, he’s headed back to the indie scene, and is working with Ben Stiller on the low-budget Nutcrackers which was announced in December and is currently shooting.
Seeing Stiller in front of the camera again is a pleasing prospect and we’re sure David Gordon Green will be relishing the kind of creative freedom that doesn’t always come with huge tentpole franchise projects, which The Exorcist series now seems to be. Rest assured, we’ll bring you more on the next film’s resurrection when we hear it.
