They’re Rebooting ‘The Exorcist’

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It’s safe to agree that some movies just shouldn’t be touched. Perfect even in their flaws, these films should remain standalone pieces of entertainment, pure statements about what they meant to the world when they were released, that don’t need a modern revamping. But Hollywood can’t leave well enough alone, which is how we get Psycho IIBlues Brothers 2000 — and, apparently, an upcoming theatrical reboot of 1973’s The Exorcist.

According to Deadline, Morgan Creek Entertainment, who has a remake of 1992’s Stay Tuned in the works, also has “a planned theatrical reboot of The Exorcist in the works for 2021.” No further explanation is given other than this, though the story is being picked up by Dread Central and Bloody Disgusting.

For those of you who don’t know, The Exorcist — directed by William Friedkin, based off of the novel by Peter Blatty – revolves around a little girl named Regan MacNeil who becomes possessed by a demonic force. When her attempts at treating Regan medically are ineffective, her mother enlists the help of a local Catholic priest, and eventually an experienced exorcist, to try and drive the Devil out of her little girl.

It goes without saying that this reboot is a bad idea. The Exorcist is a true horror classic, a brilliant, powerful film that scared the shit out of audiences when it first hit theaters. Linda Blair’s performance as Regan and Dick Smith’s revolutionary make-up effects changed the way that people looked at scary movies. To have someone try and remake it with some frail supermodel as Chris MacNeil and ham-fisted references to popular culture is to make an ambitious dinner that no one asked which tastes like shit.

Our only hope is that by theatrical reboot, they mean a Broadway musical. If the first five rows of the audience got sprayed with pea soup vomit, we would 100% support this piece of artistic genius.

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Words by Chris Krovatin