THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER Bumped Up a Week Earlier to Avoid Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Film
Just like the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer shared an opening date in July, giving us the gift of “Barbenheimer,” we were about to enjoy the mashup “Exorswift,” as The Exorcist: Believer and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Movie were set for a dual release date of October 13th. But The Exorcist didn’t want to go up against the Swifties who will undoubtedly flood the theaters to see Taylor, so they relented and bumped up their release date to October 6th.
The funniest part of this shift is that The Exorcist gave up its Friday the 13th release, a date the filmmakers and studio were probably psyched for, and they also backed off with the knowledge that the two audiences are likely vastly different. But I guess it’s smart to know you can’t outsell Swift.
Blumhouse producer Jason Blum made a funny social media post about the switch, saying, “Look what you made me do. The Exorcist: Believer moves to 10/6/23 #TaylorWins ,” paying his own little homage to Taylor Swift. Check out the post below, and let us know if you’ll be at the theatre two weekends in a row!
Here’s the synopsis for the film:
Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.; One Night in Miami, Hamilton) has raised their daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett, Good Girls) on his own.
But when Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum), disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.
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 also stars Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale, Hereditary) as Victor and Angela’s neighbor, and Jennifer Nettles (Harriet, The Righteous Gemstones) and Norbert Leo Butz (Fosse/Verdon, Bloodline) as the parents of Katherine, Angela’s friend.
The press release adds: “When The Exorcist, based on the best-selling book by William Peter Blatty, was released, it changed the culture forever, obliterating box office records and earning 10 Academy Award® nominations, becoming the first horror film ever nominated for Best Picture.”
David Gordon Green is directing from a screenplay he wrote with Peter Sattler (Camp X-Ray). The story comes from Scott Teems (Halloween Kills), Danny McBride (Halloween Trilogy) and Green, based on characters created by William Peter Blatty.