In 2027, one of the most iconic horror franchises ever, The Exorcist, is rising from the dead. When last we left the world started by William Friedkin’s 1973 masterpiece, a 2023 reboot fell flat on its demonic face. But horror whisperer Mike Flanagan then recruited Scarlett Johansson to the cause, and now, we finally know what The Exorcist: Martyrs is all about.
Esquire dropped the first look and info on the film, which hits theaters on March 12, 2027. It follows Johansson’s character, an NYPD homicide detective, who works a case that ends with the execution of a serial killer named Father Sunday, played by John Leguizamo. The execution doesn’t go according to plan, though, and a pair of priests played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Laurence Fishburne come into the story. Sasha Calle is a fellow detective and Hamnet’s Jacobi Jupe is Johansson’s 12-year-old son.
How does this all fit together? Well, it’s modeled after a crime procedural. “How can we explore those ideas in a serial-killer thriller in a way that starts to combine these subgenres a little, that takes what we love about a movie like Se7en or The Silence of the Lambs and combines it with what we love about a movie like The Exorcist?” Flanagan said. “We’re talking about humans under the influence—or in some cases direct control—of evil itself.”
Which means that, yes, there is a demonic possession. Though it’s unclear if it’s as straightforward as the executed serial killer and the detective’s son, which seems to be the safe bet. “It does have that one job from the title,” Flanagan said. “We do have to deliver that for sure. But hopefully it’s a lot more than a simple possession story. The connections to the serial-killer mystery are where it gets really fun and takes the possession out of the bedroom and out of parental torment and into something much, much bigger.”
The man behind the upcoming Carrie also teased that while this film will connect with previous Exorcist films, it is very much a standalone story.
“I think the first job is to tell people they’re not seeing a retread of The Exorcist,” Flanagan said. “They’re not seeing any attempt to reboot or remake or to step into the Friedkin film. They’re actually seeing a story within the Exorcist universe that has not been told before, that is unique within the franchise and taking it in a very different direction than it’s gone in the past. That’s what I’m hoping. We’re doing something very, very different than what people might’ve expected.”
You can read more and see more images over at Esquire. The Exorcist: Martyrs is out on March 12, 2027.
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