After successfully rebooting the Halloween franchise, director David Gordon Green will need to change things up for his next trilogy which will be an update on William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Currently, horror fans are counting down the hours until midnight for the premiere of the long awaited Halloween Kills. But recently Green sat down with Collider and gave them a few insights into his new installment of the 1970s horror classic which has lived in infamy since its release. He will also be co-writing and directing two other Exorcist sequels which will see the return of an original cast member.
The first film in the new trilogy will feature Ellen Burstyn reprising her role as Chris MacNeil. Leslie Odom Jr.(The Many Saints of Newark) will also star as a father of a possessed child, who in an attempt to find help seeks out Regan’s mother. Jason Blum will produce with Universal distributing the film in theaters then to the Peacock streaming platform.
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Even though the projects may look similar on paper, being a continuation of a beloved film featuring a returning franchise star, he says they are “very different sub-genres of horror. To me, it’s as different as making Stronger and Pineapple Express,” David Gordon Green says. “They’re just so unbelievably different. One is very primal and the other is very academic. So it’s just trying to switch gears there. I’m sure I’ll know more a year from now when I’ve gotten a handle on what Exorcist is. The script’s written. And it was a very, entirely different writing process.”
He also added that he will co-write and direct all three new films, saying “the first one of our trilogy is written and the second two are being outlined. So we’ve got a ways to go on that, but we know where we’re going. It’s a new journey [with] some familiar characters and some new ones as well.”
David Gordon Green’s first Exorcist film is currently scheduled to be released on October 13, 2023. In case you didn’t know you can catch his new film, Halloween Kills, in theaters and streaming on Peacock October 15, 2021.
