Academy Award winner Russell Crowe plays real-life exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth in The Pope’s Exorcist, the brand new horror movie from director Julius Avery (Overlord). The Screen Gems horror movie has thus far scared up $52 million worldwide, and Bloody Disgusting can exclusively report that a sequel to The Pope’s Exorcist is now in early development.

Bloody Disgusting’s sources indicate that development is underway on The Pope’s Exorcist 2, but we don’t have any further details at this time. We do expect Crowe to return.

Stay tuned for more as we learn it.

The smart thing about The Pope’s Exorcist is that the production budget was quite low, reportedly just $18 million. This set the horror movie up for success, allowing it to become profitable in theaters after just one week of release. The same can’t be said about Universal’s Renfield, which reportedly cost $65 million and has thus far made just $17.9 million.

Screen Gems may very well have a hit franchise on their hands with The Pope’s Exorcist, and there’s certainly no shortage of tales that can be pulled from Father Gabriele Amorth’s legendary career as a high profile exorcist. The Italian priest is reported to have performed over 100,000 exorcisms for the Vatican, so needless to say the sky is the limit here.

In The Pope’s Exorcist, “Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s leading exorcist, investigates the possession of a child and uncovers a conspiracy the Vatican has tried to keep secret.”

Franco Nero (Django, John Wick: Chapter 2) stars as the titular pope. Laurel Marsden (Ms. Marvel), Cornell S. John (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald), Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Alex Essoe (Doctor Sleep) and Daniel Zovatto (It Follows) also star. Ralph Ineson (The Witch, The Green Knight) voices the film’s demon.

From Sony’s Screen Gems, The Pope’s Exorcist is based on real-life exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, “the legendary Italian priest who performed over 100,000 exorcisms for the Vatican.”

Evan Spiliotopoulos wrote the current draft with revisions by Chuck MacLean, based on Michael Petroni-revised original drafts by Chester Hastings and R. Dean McCreary.

Doug Belgrad of 2.0 Entertainment produced along with Michael Patrick Kaczmarek of Jesus & Mary, Jeff Katz of Worldwide Katz, and Loyola Productions’ Eddie Siebert.

The Exorcist director William Friedkin told Father Gabriele Amorth’s story in the recent documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, which you can find on various VOD outlets.

Father Gabriele Amorth passed away back in 2016 at the age of 91.