Exclusives
‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ Sequel in Early Development! [Exclusive]
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.
A gnarly infection threatens to claw its way out of a moving camper in the first trailer for Shudder’s claustrophobic Hellcat.
The feature debut of writer/editor/director Brock Bodell, who previously edited the Fantasia title Ultrasound, makes its debut on Shudder on August 14.
In Hellcat, “Lena wakes up in a moving camper trailer with a horrifying wound. She’s warned by the driver that they have one hour to get to a doctor, or she’ll succumb to an unimaginably awful fate. As the pain sets in and reality begins to fray, who should really be afraid?”
Dakota Gorman (Natural Disasters) leads the cast that also includes Todd Terry (“Breaking Bad”), Liz Atwater (The Other People), Jordan Mullins (The Bikeriders), and James Austin Johnson (“Saturday Night Live”) in a voice role. Bodell also produces alongside Andrew Duensing and Nate Eggert.
Hellcat made its world premiere last summer at Fantasia. I wrote in my review, “Hellcat is a bit of a Trojan horror that defies easy classification, by design. Bodell’s sneaky debut feature is occasionally too sparse in its worldbuilding in its bid to preserve the mystery, but not enough to detract from the thrilling road thriller that transforms into a completely left-field type of horror we don’t get nearly enough of. The stripped-down tribute to a classic horror staple catches you off guard in more ways than one, marking Bodell as one to watch.”
In other words, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to Hellcat‘s simple infection setup, delivering plenty of surprises along its bumpy road of horrors.
Check out the trailer and poster below and add Hellcat to your watchlists asap.
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