Scarlett Johansson’s THE EXORCIST: MARTYRS Could Have an Interesting Franchise Connection

Now that the trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs is out there, the big question worth digging into isn’t just how creepy Mike Flanagan’s new horror movie looks. It’s who exactly Scarlett Johansson is playing.

Universal Pictures has been presenting Johansson’s character as Detective Julie Miller, an NYPD homicide detective and single mother who gets pulled into a horrifying case involving Father Sunday, played by John Leguizamo.

He’s a serial killer known for staging gruesome murder scenes inspired by the martyrdom of Roman Catholic saints.

Julie witnesses Father Sunday’s execution, but this is an Exorcist movie, so of course, things don’t go smoothly.

Flanagan recently shared some details about Julie, and one piece of information has horror fans doing some detective work of their own.

“She’s a homicide detective with the NYPD and a single mother of a young boy named Max, who’s just turned 12 years old.”

“Because being a homicide detective is one of those jobs that pulls you completely out of your life when you’re on call, you might not come home for days while you’re chasing a case. A lot of the slack is picked up by her own mother, Mary.”

That mention of Julie’s mother, Mary, is where things get interesting.

There’s a very real possibility that Johansson isn’t simply playing Julie Miller. She could actually be playing Julie Kinderman, the daughter of Mary and William Kinderman.

William Kinderman was the police lieutenant played by Lee J. Cobb in The Exorcist and later by George C. Scott in The Exorcist III.

If that theory is right, The Exorcist: Martyrs may have a stronger connection to the original films than the marketing has fully revealed so far.

Kinderman was one of the key figures in the franchise’s mythology. In The Exorcist III, he faced both the demon Pazuzu and the spirit of the Gemini Killer, played by Brad Dourif.

That evil force had possessed Father Karras, played by Jason Miller, after Karras died at the bottom of the Georgetown steps while saving Regan MacNeil, played by Linda Blair, at the end of the original film.

So, let’s put this together. Johansson is playing a homicide detective named Julie. Her mother is named Mary. The Exorcist franchise already has a major detective named Kinderman, whose wife was Mary. The new movie is also bringing back imagery tied to the iconic steps where Karras died. That just feels a little too specific to ignore.

Of course, Universal and Flanagan haven’t confirmed that Julie Miller is Julie Kinderman. The “Miller” name could be a married name, or just a way to keep the movie’s bigger connections under wraps until audiences see it.

Still, the pieces are sitting right there, and it would be a pretty cool way to pull the franchise’s past into a new story without just repeating what came before.

Flanagan has made it clear that this isn’t meant to be another version of William Friedkin’s classic.

“I think the first job is to tell people they’re not seeing a retread of The Exorcist,” Flanagan says. “They’re not seeing any attempt to reboot or remake or to step into the Friedkin film.

“They’re actually seeing a story within the Exorcist universe that has not been told before, that is unique within the franchise and taking it in a very different direction than it’s gone in the past. That’s what I’m hoping. We’re doing something very, very different than what people might’ve expected.”

That approach makes the Julie Kinderman theory even more intriguing. Instead of bringing back Regan MacNeil again or trying to recreate the possession of a child in a bedroom, Flanagan may be building a new mystery around someone connected to the old nightmare.

That gives The Exorcist: Martyrs room to honor the franchise while moving into a darker crime thriller direction.

The cast also includes Sasha Calle as homicide detective Gina Restrepo, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Father William, and Laurence Fishburne as a mysterious priest who enters the story when the killings begin closing in on Julie’s personal life.

That danger reaches her mother, played by Diane Lane, and her son Max, played by Jacobi Jupe.

Flanagan also confirmed that the movie will deliver on the franchise’s title.

“It does have that one job from the title,” Flanagan says, confirming that we will see an exorcism in the movie.“We do have to deliver that for sure. But hopefully it’s a lot more than a simple possession story.

“The connections to the serial-killer mystery are where it gets really fun and takes the possession out of the bedroom and out of parental torment and into something much, much bigger.”

The movie is leaning into a mix of demonic horror, religious murder mystery, and legacy mythology.

The possible Kinderman connection gives Johansson’s role an extra layer, especially if Julie is unknowingly being pulled into unfinished business tied to her family’s past.

Johansson’s character seems positioned at the center of something nasty and personal. If Flanagan is using the Kinderman family as a bridge into a new chapter of the Exorcist universe, that’s a more interesting path than simply making another possession movie and calling it a day.