Summary

• Mike Flanagan is set to reboot The Exorcist franchise, but he has to avoid Doctor Sleep's mistakes.
• Flanagan's Exorcist film must not rely too much on the original's iconic moments.
• The Exorcist: Believer proved the franchise needs fresh stories, not nostalgia.

Mike Flanagan is working on a new Exorcist movie, and it has to learn from the missteps of his last legacy horror sequel, Doctor Sleep, his follow-up to The Shining. Last October, David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer arrived as a bitter disappointment, both critically and commercially. Although it was initially planned as the first chapter of a new Exorcist trilogy, the underperformance of Believer has led the studio to cancel the trilogy in favor of a total reboot of the franchise; the reboot is currently scheduled to be released on March 13, 2026.

Flanagan has been tapped to write, direct, and produce the new Exorcist film. The studio clearly has faith in his vision, and that faith is well-placed. Flanagan is one of the best horror filmmakers working today, having helmed gems like Hush and Gerald’s Game, and he proved with Midnight Mass that he can handle religious-themed horror with aplomb. This won’t be the first time Flanagan has made a sequel to a beloved horror classic. In 2019, he adapted Stephen King’s Shining sequel Doctor Sleep. Flanagan’s Exorcist reboot needs to learn from the biggest mistake he made with Doctor Sleep.

Doctor Sleep Is A Great Movie Until It Leans Too Much Into Being A Shining Sequel

The third act is like a Shining-based theme park ride

With his adaptation of Doctor Sleep, Flanagan set out to make a sequel to both King’s original Shining novel and Stanley Kubrick’s iconic but very unfaithful movie adaptation. And against all odds, Flanagan managed to walk this line effectively, pleasing fans of both King and Kubrick. Doctor Sleep has shot-for-shot recreations of some of the Kubrick film’s most memorable moments, but it also has King’s original ending, with the Overlook being set on fire in the climactic sequence. Doctor Sleep has a lot of reverence for The Shining – and, unfortunately, that’s its biggest problem.

In its first two acts, Doctor Sleep is a really great horror movie in its own right. It has a compelling new story about grown-up Danny Torrance, terrifying visuals like a room being tilted on its side, and an impeccable performance by Rebecca Ferguson as cult leader Rose the Hat. But Doctor Sleep starts to fall apart in its third act when it becomes a hodgepodge of iconic moments from The Shining. This cameo-filled finale plays like a Shining theme park ride, and it ruins the movie. Flanagan needs to avoid making the same mistake with his Exorcist reboot.

Mike Flanagan's Exorcist Movie Needs To Avoid Making The Same Mistake

Flanagan can't make an Exorcist movie that's obsessed with the original

Flanagan’s Exorcist movie needs to avoid falling into the same trap as Doctor Sleep. Doctor Sleep recaptures the palpable tension and supernatural terror of the Kubrick classic, but it’s afraid to forge its own path. It takes Danny to the Gold Room bar where Jack first encountered the ghosts of the Overlook, the staircase where Wendy hit Jack with a baseball bat, and the bathroom where Jack came after his family with an axe – it’s more like a tour of iconic filming locations from The Shining than an organic conclusion to Doctor Sleep’s narrative.

With his Exorcist movie, Flanagan needs to avoid showing too much reverence for the original film. If the big finale of Flanagan’s Exorcist film sees its main character visiting the staircase where Father Karras died and the bedroom where Pazuzu was exorcized from Regan, then it won’t stand on its own two feet. It’ll just play like an extended wink to the audience. The Exorcist: Believer already proved that this franchise needs more than just a love letter to the original movie.

The canceled Exorcist: Believer sequel would’ve been called The Exorcist: Deceiver.

The Exorcist: Believer Proved The Franchise Needs To Stop Dwelling On The Past

The Exorcist: Believer got way too hung up on the original film

The many missteps of The Exorcist: Believer prove that the franchise needs to stop dwelling on the past and forge a new path for the future. The film does have its own storyline – two different kids are possessed and only one of them can make it out alive – but that storyline is entirely made up of clichéd scenes of possessed kids doing generic possessed kid stuff. The Exorcist: Believer commits more to referencing the original movie than it commits to telling this story.

Some of those nods to the original come at the expense of the story’s integrity. In The Exorcist: Believer, it’s revealed that Chris MacNeil has turned her experiences with Regan’s possession into a tell-all memoir. This is completely at odds with this character’s painstaking efforts to keep her daughter’s demonic struggles out of the public eye in the original movie. The Exorcist isn’t Star Wars; it doesn’t need an affectionate legacy sequel playing on the audience’s nostalgia. It needs a horrifying new tale of demonic possession with new characters and new scares – and, hopefully, Flanagan can deliver just that.