The Exorcist: Martyrs

Initial work as Deceiver

In July 2021, two sequels to The Exorcist: Believer (2023) were confirmed to be in development with the same creative team of David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, Peter Sattler, and Scott Teems on board.^[1][2][3] Two years later, Universal Pictures announced that the first sequel would be titled The Exorcist: Deceiver.^[4] After the poor reception of Believer, sources from The Hollywood Reporter claimed there would almost certainly be some degree of creative re-think for the next two films and that Green recently expressed some doubt about his participation.^[5] In January 2024, Green stepped down from Deceiver and the film was removed from the release schedule shortly after.^[6]

New work as franchise reboot

In May 2024, it was announced that Mike Flanagan was in talks to write, produce and direct the next The Exorcist film.^[7] Later that month, Flanagan was confirmed to be doing so for a new Exorcist film to be made as a reboot with plans for Deceiver and its sequel being scrapped following Believer's critical and commercial failure.^[8][9][10] While promoting The Life of Chuck (2024) months later, Flanagan described that he was only going into the franchise due to feeling there was something new he could bring to it, noting he had been "very aggressively" chasing the job due to being convinced he had something to add, seeing an opportunity to do something that had never been done within the series, honoring what had come before but without building it on nostalgia. He thus saw a chance to make the scariest film he had ever made despite knowing how high the expectations would be and no one but him being more intimidated with such prospect.^[9] As a result, Flanagan was unavailable to direct the Clayface (2026) film he had written set in the DC Universe (DCU) for James Gunn and Peter Safran, leading them to hire James Watkins to direct the film due to Flanagan's commitments to his The Exorcist film.^[11][12]

In June 2025, Flanagan revealed in a Tumblr post that the film was not going to begin production until after he finished work on the 2026 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's novel Carrie (1974) for Amazon Prime Video and that there was "no way it's coming out next March".^[13][14] In November 2025, Scarlett Johansson joined the film in the lead role, as well as Atomic Monster joining the production team.^[15] In December 2025, Jeff Sneider reported that Johansson's commitments to the film had been adjusted to accommodate the schedule of The Batman: Part II (2028), for which she had entered negotiations to discuss an undisclosed role she was "aggressively" pursuing.^[16] That same month, Jacobi Jupe joined the cast.^[17] In January 2026, Diane Lane joined the cast.^[18] In February 2026, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Laurence Fishburne joined the cast,^[19][20] with sources indicating Ejiofor would play an "ex-con turned priest" whereas Johansson would play the mother of Jupe's character.^[21] In March 2026, Sasha Calle and John Leguizamo were added to the cast,^[22][23] alongside Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Gil Bellows, Carl Lumbly, John Gallagher Jr., Benjamin Pajak, Carla Gugino, Robert Longstreet, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan and Kate Siegel, all eleven frequent collaborators of Flanagan.^[24] In June 2026, the official Red Rooms production website revealed the film's title as The Exorcist: Martyrs.^[25]