Universal is still making more Exorcist sequels, but they might need to be reworked

Believer opened at the top of the U.S. box office, but with only $27 million or so (a bit under the already low-ish expectations), which The Hollywood Reporter attributes to a whole bunch of factors, including the “crowded horror marketplace” at theaters and the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike making it impossible to get the stars out there for promotion (would the movie have done better if we had gotten to see Ellen Burstyn play Mario Kart with Jimmy Fallon? The world will never know). But, according to THR’s sources, the studio is still fully committed to making two more Exorcist movies, including Deceiver, which is scheduled to come out in April of 2025 and already has a completed script.

The sources say that the response to Believer will “almost certainly demand some degree of creative re-think” for Deceiver and the third movie (which we would guess will be called… Receiver? Exorcist III: Golden Receiver? Ain’t no rule says a dog can’t perform an exorcism?), but there’s no way to know how that re-think might look just yet. The most successful Exorcist movies, and that’s a very short list, tend to be the ones that don’t try to be The Exorcist, which Believer very much was trying to do. So maybe… don’t do that for the next two? We’re not the ones getting paid to come up with ideas here.