Russell Crowe to expel demons in thriller The Pope’s Exorcist
Helmed by Overlord director Julius Avery, the film will reportedly begin production in Ireland in September
Aux News Exorcist
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—Russell Crowe is ready to expel some demons. The Oscar-winning actor has signed on to star in a new thriller The Pope’s Exorcist. He will play real-life Vatican chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorthe, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Julius Avery, who helmed the 2018 horror flick Overlord, is set to direct the project for Screen Gems. The filmmaker is also currently working with Sylvester Stallone on the Prime Video superhero thriller Samaritan, which is set for an August 26 release on the streamer.
‘“It’s been a goal of mine to work with Russell,” Avery says in a statement on the new film, THR reports. “To collaborate with him on the amazing Pope’s Exorcist is truly a dream come true.”
The film will reportedly kick off principal production in September in Ireland, after Screen Gems acquired Amorthe’s life rights, including rights to his extensive memoirs, An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories. The two tomes chronicle the more than 100,000 exorcisms Amorthe, who died in 2016 at the age of 91, performed during his lifetime.
Evan Spilotopoulous adapted the works into the The Pope’s Exorcist current script. Chuck MacLean and Michael Petroni provided revisions, while Chester Hastins and R. Dean McCreary wrote an original draft. Doug Belgrad will produce, alongside Eddie Siebert and Jeff Katz. Scott Strauss, Michael Bitar and Giselle Johnson will oversee the film via Screen Gems.
The news of Crowe’s latest starring role comes on the heels of his upcoming turn as Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, Taika Waititi’s latest MCU offering. Crowe is also gearing up to star in another Marvel outfit, Sony’s Kraven the Hunter, and Poker Face, which Crowe directed, wrote, and stars in with Liam Hemsworth and RZA.
13 Comments
I don’t know why that url for “Poker Face” categorizes it as a review, since there is no review due to the movie not having been released.
It’s the same for all three movies listed. Seems to be a new kind of temporary movie info page that lists synopsis, actors, and related news stories ahead of the release, but will eventually contain the reviews for said movies.Honestly not the worst idea, from a web metadata / search crawler prospective.
100,000 exorcisms? That’s 4 a day, every day, for 70 years.
This reminds me, I went down a weird wormhole on Youtube a few months ago while depressed from covering our elections and ended up watching a shockingly large number of episode of the now ultra obscure 1980s sitcom It’s a Living.
Maybe they just invited all the possessed people to St. Peter’s square and did them all at once?
Amateurs! Don’t they know that trying to mass-exorcise a crowd dilutes the effectiveness?
A perceptive film site might note that this is the same priest featured performing an exorcism in William Friedkin’s doc The Devil and Father Amorth.Of course a perceptive film site might also not spell the subject’s name wrong repeatedly.
Have a look at this guy – did anyone verify he wasn’t possessing his patients himself?
He was clearly in the pocket of Big Demon, making back-alley deals to possess parishioners so that he could come along and exorcise them. We need an investigation now!
Sometimes you get someone who has been possessed by 100 demons at once, and then you take the rest of the week off.
I had no idea Screen Gems was still around. That’s kinda quaint.
Fuck yeah big Rusty.I rewatched him in Michael Mann’s The Insider last night and fuck that movie is good.