Blumhouse are one of Hollywood’s most reliable hit factories, churning out a succession of low budget horrors that almost always turn a decent profit at the box office, so it’s hardly the most earth-shattering of revelations to hear that Jason Blum’s outfit will be producing the next iteration of The Exorcist.
After all, the company are responsible for either developing, creating or spearheading a number of money-spinning franchises including Insidious, The Purge, Paranormal Activity and David Gordon Green’s Halloween hybrid of sequel and reboot. It’s also fitting that the filmmaker reportedly entered talks a few months back to helm The Exorcist, and while Blum wouldn’t confirm whether or not Green had definitely signed on to step behind the camera, it certainly sounds as though he’ll be heavily involved.
“It’s going to be like David’s Halloween sequel. I think it’s going to pleasantly surprise all the skeptics out there. We had a lot of skeptics about Halloween and David turned them around, and I think he’s going to turn it around with The Exorcist. I want to make a movie that works for both audiences. I want to make a movie for people that know and love the first Exorcist and are furious that we’re doing this, but somehow drag themselves to the theater. I want them to come out happy. And I want to make a movie that people who’ve never heard of The Exorcist really enjoy. I think David did that with Halloween. I think he’ll do that with The Exorcist also.”
There are plenty of similarities to be drawn between Halloween and The Exorcist that would make Green the ideal candidate to take the reins. Both are all-time classics of the horror genre that seized the zeitgeist before going on to spawn franchises that quickly suffered from the law of diminishing returns.
Halloween is a landmark for horror and one of its most important titles ever, but The Exorcist is arguably held in even higher esteem after earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and earning in excess of $440 million at the box office to rule as the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history for almost two decades.
Putting a fresh spin on a story that’s long since seen all of its major iconography seep into the pores of popular culture is a daunting task, but Green has previous for reinventing stagnant properties, especially when you consider he’s also overseeing HBO’s Hellraiser as well.
