New look at Scarlett Johansson in Mike Flanagan's 'The Exorcist: Martyrs'

Universal Pictures continues to prepare the audience for the theatrical release of The Exorcist: Martyrsthe new installment of The Exorcistwritten, directed and produced by Mike Flanagan.

The latest in the marketing campaign is a new official look at the protagonist Scarlett Johansson (Jurassic World Rebirth), shared by ScreenRant.

Johansson plays Julie Miller, a homicide detective who investigates a crime with religious ties, which connects her to a previous case she had at the beginning of her career.

Take a look at the end of the note.

The cast is headed by Johansson, Jacobi Skirt (Hamnet), Diane Lane (Anniversary), Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Life of Chuck), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), John Leguizamo (The Odyssey) y Sasha Calle (The Rip).

The rest of the cast includes Carla Gugino, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Gil Bellows, Carl Lumbly, Robert Longstreet, Matt Biedel, Samantha Sloyan, John Gallagher Jr.y Benjamin Tax.

The film will move away from the plot of possessed characters to develop, instead, more in the style of a film about serial killers. The story focuses on homicide detective Julie Miller (Johansson) who stumbles upon a macabre crime scene that seems to have links to religious reasons. This brings to mind the moment when, at the beginning of his career, he captured a murderer known as “Father Sunday” (Leguizamo), who was sentenced to death. Despite “Father Sunday’s” death, clues emerge that suggest he may not really be gone, or that perhaps someone else was controlling him from the beginning.

Although it may seem that this new installment is not a traditional horror saga film, the truth is that it shares narrative similarities with The Exorcist IIIwhose plot similarly focused on the investigation of a series of murders that presented all the distinctive features of the “Gemini Killer,” who had already died.

When the murders do not stop after the death of Father Sunday, Detective Miller joins forces with Gina Restrepo (Calle)an NYPD homicide detective; This makes the film fall into both the horror and police investigation genres. Flanagan made this decision after considering: “How can we explore those ideas in a thriller about serial killers, combining these subgenres a little and bringing together what we love?” from movies like Se7en o The Silence of the Lambs with what fascinates us The exorcist? “We are talking about human beings under the influence—or, in some cases, direct control—of pure evil.”

As for Ejiofor, “he plays Father William, a long-serving prison chaplain who presided over the execution of Father Sunday and who, since then—in the years since that event—has been immersed in a crisis of vocation and faith as a result of what happened that night.” Fishburne plays another priest, an expert in ancient rituals, who becomes involved in the story when the murders begin to threaten Detective Miller's 12-year-old son Max (Jupe) and her mother, Mary (Lane).

This is where demonic possession comes into play, along with serial killer and police investigation plots. By balancing these elements, Flanagan intends for the play to be, “hopefully, much more than just a possession story. The connections to the serial killer mystery are what make the story really interesting, taking possession out of the realm of the bedroom and parental torment and into something much, much bigger.”

The study describes it as ““a radical new vision” of the horror franchise, which This is NOT a sequel to The Exorcist: Believer (2023) by David Gordon Greenwhich had a disappointing performance at the box office, which is why Blumhouse, which had already given the green light to a trilogy that started with Believertook some time to rethink the next step.

With Flanagan the idea of ​​a new film of The exorcistannounced as “a completely new story set in the universe of The Exorcist and not a sequel to The Exorcist: Believers of 2023.”

Universal developed the project in conjunction with the companies of James Wan y Jason Blumafter fusion as Blumhouse–Atomic Monster.

The Exorcist The original, based on the novel by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin, focused on the demonic possession of a young woman and the priests who tried to save her. The film was nominated for 10 Oscars.

The project is produced by Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, Morgan Creek Entertainment and Flanagan's Red Room Pictures, with Universal Pictures set to bring it to theaters around the world.

David Robinson is another of the producers along with Jason Blum. Alexandra Magistro will executive produce for Red Room Pictures and Ryan Turek for Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.

The filming of The Exorcist: Martyrswas made from March to June, with a theatrical release date scheduled for March 12, 2027.

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