Real reason 'The Exorcist: Believer' trilogy was cancelled

The Exorcist: Believer director David Gordon Green has opened up about the reason his planned trilogy for the franchise was cancelled.

In a new interview with IndieWire highlighted budgeting constraints and issues with creative freedom as the reasons for the cancellation.

“It’s complicated. It’s long and complicated,” he remarked.

“We had our next one written and had it mapped out for the third one. Again, it was ambitious, complicated. We were going to Europe for some pretty extraordinary backdrops. It was one of those things where all of the creative parties got together,” he explained.

“What I’m pitching, in terms of my professional ambition is, I need the creative freedom and give me the budgetary constraints so I can keep control of that. That’s something we learned pretty quickly, [with] expectations that are limitless and really daunting,” he shared.

“So, for me to keep that creative freedom and be able to make the choices I wanted to make… As you see with the Halloween movies, the choices I make aren’t always the most popular ones. So it’s trying to make something that me, and my great friends at Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, want [for] that property to be fulfilled, as much as the audience is there and has the appetite for it. I don’t think they were on the journey I was excited about taking,” added the Halloween Ends filmmaker.

Believer was an expensive movie for the studio, which had to pay $400 million for the property rights alone.

Green added: “Honestly, there are a lot of ins and outs of that stuff that I don’t even know. All I know is, give me some boundaries and let me loose. If there are a lot of people poking me about ideas and thoughts and notes? I’m not best in those environments. It’s just trying to make everybody get what they need.”

He further shared what’s most important to him in filmmaking: “For me, it’s creative freedom. Every time. And I’ll always turn a corner and figure out where the freedom is. And also where the spontaneity is. I like to reinvent myself.”

The Exorcist: Believer came out on October 6, 2023 and has a 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.