Blumhouse and Universal‘s The Exorcist: Believer has started off its box office run with $2.85 million in Thursday previews at the domestic box office.
The David Gordon Green-directed horror pic opened exactly 50 years after the first Exorcist hit theaters.
Green and Blumhouse are hoping they can reinvent the Exorcist brand much as they did with the Halloween franchise. There’s plenty at stake considering Universal reportedly paid a huge $400 million for the rights to the franchise in 2021 (two more Believer are already planned).
Exorcist Believer is tracking to open to $30 million to $35 million domestically, but it remains to be seen whether bad word of mouth dings the R-rated project (its critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes is a terrible 22 percent). The movie also opens in more than 40 international markets this weekend.
It’s hardly unusual for Exorcist films to leave reviewers unimpressed. The franchise may have launched with William Friedkin’s acclaimed 1973 classic, but none of its four previous sequels received much acclaim.
For the first time since the 1973 film, Ellen Burstyn reprises her iconic role as Chris MacNeil, an actress who has been forever altered by what happened to her daughter Regan five decades before.
The film centers on Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.), whose daughter (Lidya Jewett) and her friend (Olivia Marcum) become possessed.
