Chiwetel Ejiofor Joins Forces With Scarlett Johansson for Mike Flanagan’s New Exorcist Movie

Universal and Peacock spent a jaw-dropping pile of money to reboot The Exorcist as a new trilogy. That plan hit a wall, then found a new driver. Now it just added another very good actor. Here is where we are and how we got here.

Quick rewind: the $400M plan that stalled

A few years back, Universal Pictures and Peacock paid somewhere around $400 million for the rights to distribute a new trilogy of sequels to the 1973 horror classic. The original blueprint was a Blumhouse-produced set of films directed by David Gordon Green, fresh off his Halloween trilogy.

Green’s first entry, The Exorcist: Believer, landed in theaters in October 2023. It earned $137 million worldwide on a $30 million budget — fine for a mid-budget horror movie, not so fine when you are staring down a $400 million franchise bet. Reactions were largely negative, and that mattered. A sequel, The Exorcist: Deceiver, already had a script and an April 18, 2025 date on the calendar, with a third story mapped out. After Believer’s reception, Deceiver was shelved and Green exited.

Enter Mike Flanagan, with a different angle

Last year, Universal handed the keys to writer/director/producer Mike Flanagan, who was reportedly aiming for, in their words, a 'radical new take' on the property.

'A radical new take.'

The studio initially circled March 13, 2026, but that date got nudged. The new target: March 12, 2027, in theaters.

The cast: Scarlett Johansson leads, Chiwetel Ejiofor joins

Scarlett Johansson is starring, and now, per Deadline, Chiwetel Ejiofor is on board too. Ejiofor recently worked with Flanagan on his Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck, so that creative pairing is already warmed up. Also in the mix: Diane Lane (Let Him Go) and Jacobi Jupe (Hamnet). Industry chatter suggests Jupe may be playing Johansson’s character’s son, but nothing official yet.

Story details are completely locked down for now, so do not expect character breakdowns or plot teases for a while.

The rumor mill (grain of salt required)

Because the actual plot is under wraps, the whispers are doing overtime:

- Insider Jeff Sneider has said Flanagan was told to anchor the new film with a movie star. According to him, Flanagan sounded out Angelina Jolie as a potential lead, while Universal also gauged interest from Charlize Theron — who is already a Universal regular via Fast and Furious and is part of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey ensemble, which the studio plans to release next summer. In the end, the studio and Flanagan went with Johansson, who already fronts two other Universal-friendly brands: Jurassic World and the Sing franchise.

- World of Reel floated a possible title, The Exorcist: Martyrs, and a logline about Johansson as a small-town rookie detective pulled into something impossibly dark. That is unconfirmed, and if the lead choices were mostly 40s/50s, the 'rookie' angle would be an unconventional twist. File under wait-and-see.

Who is making it (and where)

The film is a collaboration between Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, Morgan Creek Entertainment, and Flanagan’s Red Room Pictures. Jason Blum is producing, Ryan Turek is executive producing for Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, and David Robinson is producing for Morgan Creek. Alexandra Magistro serves as an executive producer for Red Room.

Production is expected to kick off in New York soon.

The bottom line

Universal paid big for an Exorcist revival, the first swing did not land the way they wanted, and now Mike Flanagan is taking a very different shot with a heavyweight cast led by Scarlett Johansson and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Release is set for March 12, 2027. If Flanagan’s track record with horror and character work carries over here, this could be the course correction the franchise needed. We will know more once the studio finally cracks open that plot vault.