Hot on the heels of his Carrie adaptation hitting Prime Video, modern horror master Mike Flanagan's next feature, The Exorcist: Martyrs, gets its first bone-chilling trailer today ahead of its spring release. Say your prayers:
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Laurence Fishburne, John Leguizamo, Diane Lane, Jacobi Jupe and Chiwetel Ejiofor, The Exorcist: Martyrs, the latest in The Exorcist cinematic franchise that began in 1973 with William Friedkin's classic, follows Detective Miller (Johansson), a homicide detective with the NYPD and a single mother of a young boy named Max, who’s just turned 12 years old.
Miller apprehends a serial killer known as Father Sunday (Leguizamo), whose slayings are modeled on the gruesome suffering of saints. When Father Sunday is sentenced to death, all hell, quite literally, breaks loose.
Flanagan's The Exorcist: Martyrs also features multiple members of the so-called Flanafamily, including Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Gil Bellows, Carl Lumbly, Robert Longstreet, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, Kate Siegel, John Gallagher Jr., Benjamin Pajak, and Carla Gugino, most of whom have appeared across myriad Flanagan projects from The Haunting of Bly Manor to The Life of Chuck.
In addition to writing and directing, Flanagan, who also has new a new adaptation of The Mist in the works, produces The Exorcist: Martyrs via his Red Room Pictures banner, alongside David Robinson for Morgan Creek Entertainment and horror titan Jason Blum for Blumhouse-Atomic Monster. Executive producers include Alexandra Magistro for Red Room Pictures and Ryan Turek for Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.
The logline for The Exorcist: Martyrs is definitely giving The Exorcist III vibes (complimentary), but Flanagan is quick to note that his demonic tale is entirely original. Speaking with Esquire, the Midnight Mass director stresses that:
“[People] are 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.”
The Exorcist: Martyrs hits theaters on March 12, 2027.
