{"id":461108,"date":"2026-02-06T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/461108\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T00:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:01:15","slug":"laurence-fishburne-joins-exorcist-reboot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/461108\/","title":{"rendered":"Laurence Fishburne joins Exorcist reboot"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest directors in horror, and among the most respected, Mike Flanagan always seemed like a good pick to get the\u00a0Exorcist series back on track. But why Hollywood keeps trying never made much sense. (Well, outside of Universal needing to recoup some of its massive investment<\/a>.) Like, it\u2019s never worked. Why are we forcing it to? Well, we think we finally have a reason: Laurence Fishburne saying, \u201cThe power of Christ compels you.\u201d Per Variety<\/a>, Fishburne is joining Flanagan\u2019s upcoming reboot, alongside Scarlett Johansson, Jacobi Jupe<\/a>, Diane Lane, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. To be clear, Fishburne hasn\u2019t officially been cast as an exorcist, but we pray Flanagan wouldn\u2019t pass up the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Hollywood has never had much luck conjuring a successful Exorcist sequel. Nevertheless, there have been numerous gonzo attempts to capitalize on the success of William Friedkin\u2019s Oscar-winning blockbuster and William Peter Blatty\u2019s bestseller. Blatty even took a stab at it with The Exorcist III<\/a> after John Boorman\u2019s Exorcist II: The Heretic left audiences scratching their heads. Both have since amassed cult followings, which is more than we can say for Renny Harlin and Paul Schrader\u2019s dueling Exorcist prequels, Exorcist: The Beginning<\/a> and Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist<\/a>. The two prequels are indicative of the kinds of struggles involved in building out the Exorcist universe. Schrader was fired from the production of Dominion, so Morgan Creek hired Harlin to rewrite and reshoot the movie as The Beginning, which bombed at the box office. Months later, Warner Bros. released Schrader\u2019s version anyway, and it bombed as well. Roughly two decades later, after Universal paid a staggering $400 million for the franchise rights, The Exorcist: Believer, the start of a new trilogy of Exorcist movies directed by David Gordon Green and starring Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair, cratered and left the studio scrambling to fast-track a do-over.<\/p>\n

No one needs another Exorcist. Audiences don\u2019t appear to be hungering for another demonically possessed child vomiting split-pea soup anymore than they\u2019re hungering for another Vespa ride with The Pope\u2019s Exorcist. But if we can get a scene of Fishburne, in the commanding baritone of Morpheus, reading the \u201cRites of Exorcism,\u201d the efforts of generations of filmmakers will finally be rewarded.<\/p>\n

The Exorcist, which is not a sequel to Believer, is expected to be released in theaters in March 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the biggest directors in horror, and among the most respected, Mike Flanagan always seemed like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-461108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}