{"id":655401,"date":"2026-10-24T03:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T03:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/655401\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T03:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T03:24:09","slug":"we-wish-ellen-burstyn-had-moved-on-from-the-exorcist-before-signing-on-to-star-in-believer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/655401\/","title":{"rendered":"We Wish Ellen Burstyn Had Moved on From ‘The Exorcist’ Before Signing on to Star in ‘Believer’"},"content":{"rendered":"

We love Ellen Burstyn; her performance as terrified mother Chris MacNeil in 1973\u2019s The Exorcist\u00a0is just one of many reasons why. But even the power of Burstyn couldn\u2019t save 2023\u2019s The Exorcist: Believer<\/a>, a franchise entry that is now most memorable for the way it wasted one of horror\u2019s most longed-for onscreen reunions, bringing Burstyn\u2019s Chris and Linda Blair\u2019s Regan back together.<\/p>\n

Horror fans waited 50 years for that, through other Exorcist sequels that are both amazing<\/a> and terrible<\/a>, and the movie was such a disappointment that Believer director David Gordon Green\u2019s planned follow-up was taken off the table<\/a>. But Hollywood can\u2019t let The Exorcist go, which is why Mike Flanagan\u2019s The Exorcist: Martyrs will be hitting theaters in 2027.<\/p>\n

Burstyn, however, is over it. Speaking to Variety<\/a>, she sounded ready to never talk about the franchise ever again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t there enough already of the Exorcist thing? It\u2019s enough already,\u201d the 93-year-old Oscar-winner said.<\/p>\n

Burstyn fans will recall there was one big reason she signed on for Believer, and it didn\u2019t have anything to do with her feelings toward the horror series. In 2022, the Hollywood Reporter<\/a> asked why she\u2019d agreed to be in Green\u2019s film after so long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve turned down many versions of The Exorcist 2. I\u2019ve said no every time. This time they offered me a whole bunch of money and I still said no. And then they surprised me, and they came back and said, \u2018We doubled the offer.\u2019 \u2026 I thought, \u2018That\u2019s a lot of money. Let me think about it,’\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Though she said she felt like \u201cthe devil is asking my price,\u201d she came up with a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next thought that came to mind was, \u2018My price is a scholarship program for talented students at our master\u2019s degree program at Pace University. That\u2019s my price.\u2019 So I then went back and upped their up and ended up getting what I want. And I\u2019ve got a scholarship program for young actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a worthy use of what sounds like a hefty paycheck cranked out by the Hollywood machine. If only the movie itself had been more deserving of her participation.<\/p>\n

The Exorcist: Martyrs, which does not star Burstyn, hits theaters March 12, 2027.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows<\/a> to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books<\/a> that should be on your radar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We love Ellen Burstyn; her performance as terrified mother Chris MacNeil in 1973\u2019s The Exorcist\u00a0is just one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,131061,146,85,46,70862,294771],"class_list":["post-655401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-ellen-burstyn","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-the-exorcist","tag-the-exorcist-believer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}