Following a disappointing opening for The Exorcist: Believer, there’s already suggestions that change is afoot with the franchise.
Ahead of the film’s release, Jason Blum – Blumhouse’s horror impresario – called The Exorcist: Believer “the riskiest movie I have ever made”. He may well have been right.
Whilst honouring the legendary 1973 original would have certainly been on Blum’s mind, he was likely also referring to the film’s need to perform financially. Universal reportedly paid a whopping $400m for the rights to the franchise and whilst there are no doubt other ways to also recoup on its investment (such as a planned horror ride at its theme park), a new trilogy of films was central to this plan. Just as it had been with the recent, commercially successful Halloween series of movies.
However, in the wake of poor reviews (you can catch ours here) and a commercial performance that hasn’t set the world alight, it seems that those plans have quickly been put under review. The Hollywood Reporter is citing sources that suggest a ‘creative rethink’ is likely following the film’s US box office haul of $26m, no small change but some way off the $76m that Halloween made when Blumhouse bought that huge horror franchise back to cinemas in 2018.
There’s no real specifics in terms of what comes next, but the outlet suggests that the next film in the pipeline, the already-scripted Deceiver will be looked at again, as will the ongoing involvement of director David Gordon Green. He also helmed the recent Halloween trilogy, and the last two movies were, well, not great there.
Considering the gap between the recent Halloween trilogy was only a couple of years at a time, we’d expect to hear pretty soonish if Deceiver is going ahead as planned, or whether Universal decide to go in a different direction. We’re sure to be the only website out there to pass on the news when it lands. You can count on us.
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