The Exorcist: Martyrs skips the 1973 original — the clue is on Scarlett Johansson's badge
The Exorcist: Martyrs trailer: fans spot Kinderman on Scarlett Johansson's badge, hinting Mike Flanagan's film follows The Exorcist III, not the 1973 original.
Universal paid $400 million to bring back The Exorcist and got Believer. Fans now think Mike Flanagan's rescue job skips the 1973 film altogether.
Universal unveiled the first trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs at New York Comic Con on 9 October 2026. Scarlett Johansson plays New York detective Julie Miller, who stopped satanic serial killer Father Sunday (John Leguizamo) 13 years ago and gets dragged back when a new killer writes her name in an altar boy's blood on the walls of a church crypt. Eagle-eyed viewers say the badge she flashes reads something else: Kinderman.
"She's definitely playing Kinderman's daughter, her badge says Kinderman, so it all ties in to III."
— a commenter in r/movies' trailer thread
Neither Universal nor Flanagan has confirmed it, and the official synopsis still says Miller. But if the badge is anything to go by, this franchise has finally found something to do besides restage the pea soup.
The detective from Exorcist III
Lieutenant William Kinderman is the Washington homicide detective of William Peter Blatty's world. Lee J. Cobb played him in 1973; George C. Scott in The Exorcist III (1990), which Blatty wrote and directed himself from his novel Legion. It swapped spinning heads for a murder case pointing to the Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif), a man sent to the electric chair 15 years earlier.
Kinderman's wife in that film is Mary, his daughter is Julie, and Flanagan's detective is a Julie whose mother is reportedly called Mary. Miller, the theory goes, is a married name. Add a satanic killer who won't stay buried, and Martyrs starts to look like Legion with a new badge number.
Half a century of possessed children, and the most exciting idea anyone's had is a detective.
"Thankfully it seems like it's going more of an Exorcist III route," reads one of the thread's most upvoted replies. The poster thread's top question: "So, it will be closer to Exorcist 3?"
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The $400 million problem
Flanagan's film is Universal's second go at that money. The first plan was a run of direct sequels to William Friedkin's original, from David Gordon Green. It lasted one instalment:
- 2021: NBCUniversal, Peacock and Blumhouse acquire the rights from Morgan Creek in a reported $400 million deal for a new trilogy.
- October 2023: The Exorcist: Believer, with Ellen Burstyn back, takes $65.5 million in North America and $136.2 million worldwide, with what Variety called "frighteningly bad reviews".
- January 2024: Green exits the sequel, The Exorcist: Deceiver, which vanishes from the 2025 calendar.
- May 2024: Blumhouse confirms Flanagan will write and direct.
- 12 March 2027: the new release date, after a March 2026 slot was dropped when production slipped.
Martyrs is officially not a sequel to Believer, which is the most polite way a studio has ever said "let's never speak of it again". Flanagan's own pitch at the panel was simpler:
"It had to just be goddamn scary, like to your bones scary."
— Mike Flanagan, at New York Comic Con
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays former prison chaplain Father William, alongside Sasha Calle, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane and Hamnet's Jacobi Jupe. One Reddit user at an AMC fan screening says Flanagan called it the only film set that ever scared him. Fans are less certain: the top YouTube comment under the trailer is "Please be good", typed three times.
Universal has until 12 March to say whose name is on that badge. If it is Kinderman, the $400 million comeback rests on the one sequel Blatty directed himself.
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