That sound you just heard was Mark Kermode's head exploding. William Peter Blatty, author of the original novel **The Exorcist **and its screenplay, has told Cemetery Dance magazine (in news brought to us by the always-excellent Bloody Disgusting) that a new version is in the works, in the form of a TV mini-series.
Asked if there's anything he'd change about Friedkin's infamous 1973 classic, Blatty responded that he wished he'd been able to include a subplot from the novel about Chris MacNeil's housekeeper Karl, his daughter Elvira, and the questions over the death of Burke Dennings, but had been forced to drop it to keep the screenplay to a manageable two-ish hours.
Then comes the bombshell: "But I might have it my way in the near future, inasmuch as I've written an Exorcist miniseries script that not only faithfully includes all the main elements of the novel, but also some rather spooky new material and scenes, as well as a totally new (and perhaps much more satisfying) ending. I've also updated it."
Blatty also makes the bold statement that "Billy Friedkin has agreed to direct", which is, at the moment, unverified. Does Friedkin know this, or did he hear it when we did? Was he drunk? Would he really go back and start again?
Blatty has always admitted to niggling dissatisfactions with the finished film, not least a disagreement with Friedkin over the ending, which resulted in The Version You've Never Seen's reincluded Casablanca coda, where Lieutenant Kinderman and Father Dyer embark on the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
So his desire to revisit the story entirely does make a sort of sense. Even more so when you consider his experiences making the frustratingly studio-interfered-and-compromised Exorcist III. Remounting that, dubbed by one biographer as the horror genre's very own Magnificent Ambersons, would be an entirely different prospect. Maybe we should grit our teeth and hope Exorcist I happens and is a success, just so we can get to Legion again.
There's isn't a great deal of precedent for authors successfully reclaiming their own written works though. Look at what Stephen King did to The Shining in his own 1997 TV miniseries and tell us the writer always knows best.