Mike Flanagan and Chiwetel Ejiofor took the stage at New York Comic Con on Friday to unveil the first full trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs, and the footage confirms what the director has been promising for months: this is not the possession movie you think it is.
Scarlett Johansson stars as Julie Miller, a New York City detective who, thirteen years ago, ended the reign of satanic serial killer Father Sunday, played by John Leguizamo. The case made her a hero. Now a new killer has written her name in an altar boy’s blood on the walls of a church crypt, and the past she thought was buried starts clawing its way back.
Ejiofor plays Father William, a former prison chaplain who heard Father Sunday’s final confession, while Sasha Calle is rookie detective Gina Restrepo. Their investigation uncovers a thread connecting a lineage of murderers, from H.H. Holmes to the Zodiac, and an evil that is not remotely human. The footage lingers on gruesome church killings as Miller begins to wonder whether killers who claimed the Devil made them do it were telling the truth.
Diane Lane plays Miller’s mother, Mary, who has moved in to help raise her grandson Max (Jacobi Jupe). Scoot McNairy is paroled convict Clay Silver, Gil Bellows is a former Father Sunday acolyte, and Laurence Fishburne is the revered Father Nichol.
Longtime fans will notice the serial-killer-meets-demonology setup closely echoes The Exorcist III, and the trailer drops a mention of Legion, the title of William Peter Blatty‘s novel that film was based on. Whether that is a wink or something more, Universal isn’t saying.
Flanagan has been blunt about his intentions and recently told Esquire that audiences are “not seeing a retread of The Exorcist,” and cited Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs as touchstones. He also confirmed the film will deliver an actual exorcism, so the title isn’t a bait-and-switch.
The Exorcist: Martyrs opens only in theatres March 12, 2027.
