With the TV reboot of The Exorcist finding its director last month in the form of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' Rupert Wyatt, the focus has now turned to the casting. Various roles have been filled in the last few days, with Geena Davis the most recent and the highest-profile name to sign up. Alfonso Herrera, Ben Daniels, Brianne Howey, Hannah Kasulka and Kurt Egyiawan are also on the roster.
You might assume that Davis would be playing the Ellen Burstyn role of Chris MacNeill, mother of the possessed Regan, but this new Exorcist seems to be a completely different take on the story. Or at least, the names have been changed. So we find Davis as Angela Rance, "regal" but stressed about her family's circumstances, questioning her faith and suffering nightmares about a demon. Kasulka plays her daughter, now called Casey.
Likewise, Herrera and Daniels are playing the two priests at the heart of the story, but they aren't Father Merrin and Father Karras. Herrera plays Father Tomas Ortega, the compassionate padre of a small church. And Daniels is Father Marcus Lang, "an intense holy warrior carrying out an occupation that the church no longer acknowledges in public". The series will follow the mis-matched pair as they investigate the Rance family's problems.
The new Exorcist will be set in the present day, and the intended thrust - we're only talking about a pilot so far, with no guarantee of a full series order - is "psychological thriller" rather than flat-out horror. Fox is the studio holding the reins. Everyone's talking about this as being based on William Peter Blatty's original novel, but it's sounding like quite a loose adaptation at this stage. Blatty and original Exorcist director William Friedkin were reportedly working up their own new version a few years ago, but neither of them is even peripherally involved with this.
Jeremy Slater wrote the pilot's screenplay. Pre-production is underway with shooting due to start shortly.