Up until a few years ago, David Gordon Green was best known for his work in the comedy genre having helmed the likes of Pineapple Express, Your Highness and The Sitter, but he’s also delivered some solid dramatic efforts thanks to Nicolas Cage’s underrated Joe and Jake Gyllenhaal’s biopic Stronger.
Now, though, he seems to be the go-to guy when it comes to reinventing stagnant horror properties, after working wonders with Halloween by delivering the best installment in the franchise since John Carpenter’s classic original, with the 2018 hybrid of sequel and reboot becoming the highest-grossing entry by a wide margin. Not only was he hired to oversee HBO’s Hellraiser in the hopes lightning will strike twice, but Green was also reported to be in talks to direct the latest iteration of The Exorcist.
Jason Blum recently confirmed that he’d be producing the project through his Blumhouse hit factory, and he cited Green’s Halloween as one of the major inspirations behind The Exorcist, although he stopped short of officially naming Green as the man to step behind the camera.
“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 love to do these kinds of movies because people are very emotional about it. I think it’s a high bar and it’s a challenge to do the movie. Remember, most of the audience coming to this, 95% of the audience who will, if we do our job right, come to see this movie will not have seen the first Exorcist or even heard of it.”
There was a lot of backlash from fans when it was first revealed The Exorcist was being resurrected once again, but Green’s proven track record with Halloween should assuage many of those doubts, especially when upcoming sequel Halloween Kills is shaping up to be a spectacular second salvo.
William Friedkin’s 1973 classic remains one of the greatest and most important horror movies ever made, but the rest of the series couldn’t come close to matching it in terms of critical and commercial acclaim, but Blumhouse and Green have enjoyed plenty of success in the genre, so optimism should be encouraged.
