Ellen Burstyn on Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist: Martyrs: “It’s enough already”
With another movie in The Exorcist franchise due next year, Ellen Burstyn’s had enough — and Mike Flanagan’s upcoming project is squarely in the firing line.
Right, so it looks like The Exorcist franchise is going absolutely nowhere any time soon – unless you count the original star desperately willing it to stop. Ellen Burstyn, who pretty much is Chris MacNeil if you love the 1973 classic like a normal person, has gone on record making it clear she's not even remotely delighted about the latest attempt at exorcising more cash from this series.
The Exorcist: Martyrs is targeting a 2027 release, making it the franchise's latest resurrection attempt.
Now there's a fresh film in the works: The Exorcist: Martyrs, apparently aiming for cinemas in 2027. This one comes courtesy of Mike Flanagan, who’s made a name for himself with everything from The Haunting of Hill House to Doctor Sleep. The basic plot, according to IMDb, has a rookie detective going up against some kind of unspeakable evil that apparently gives her a proper existential kicking. No Regan this time, but another set of personal demons, as it were.
Burstyn Has Had Enough
Burstyn, who's 93 now, didn't exactly mince her words on the topic in a chat with Variety. Clayton Davis asked for her view on the new project, and she more or less said what a few fans have probably muttered under their breath for years. As she put it:
‘Isn’t there enough already of the “Exorcist” thing? It’s enough already.’
Bear in mind, Burstyn’s opinion matters here. She wasn’t just some random cameo in the original – she was the desperate mother who launched the whole saga, and got an Oscar nod for Best Actress out of it back in 1973. She returned after half a century for The Exorcist: Believer in 2023, David Gordon Green’s direct sequel, so it’s not like she absolutely can’t be persuaded – but it did take some doing.
A Brief Attempt at Persuasion
When Green first called her to come back for Believer, she reportedly told him a straight-up ‘hell no.’ Fair enough, really. She’d apparently been hounded by endless sequel offers over the years. But Green wouldn’t quite drop it, later telling Variety he’d had to work at it: he tried to befriend her first, then sent a tailored script that incorporated their private chats and made the character her own again. He reckons she was ‘pleasantly surprised’ at how much respect he showed Chris MacNeil — which, in the end, got her to sign on for one last go.
- Ellen Burstyn: starred in the 1973 original, Oscar-nominated, returned for 2023's Believer after much coaxing
- Mike Flanagan: now taking the reins for Martyrs, out sometime in 2027
- Martyrs will stick with an all-new protagonist, a rookie detective facing evil that will 'test everything she thought she knew about right and wrong'