Hollywood keeps racking up the box office bombs, and this Exorcist re-boot seems likely to torpedo an entire planned franchise that producers hoped would lead to box office success for years to come.
The latest episode of the Exorcist film series has been a huge flop and looks like it is going to end up losing hundreds of millions.
According to Hollywood In Toto:
“The Exorcist: Believer” opened to putrid reviews and a lackluster $27 million on its opening weekend during the month of Halloween, no less. Audiences hated the film, too. Consumers gave it a tepid 57 percent “rotten” rating at RottenTomatoes.com to go with a “C” from CinemaScore.
That’s not going to spark a word-of-mouth rebound.
Ironically, the powers that be kept the reboot’s price tag at a modest $30 million, a smart decision but one undermined by that $400 million fee.
#ExorcistBeliever is a $30 million film that opened w/ $27 million. However, they (foolishly) promised a trilogy and paid $400 million for rights. It's an IP for the sake of IP mistake and was in 2021 a show of force when Netflix was setting money on fire for sport. #BoxOffice pic.twitter.com/dsxaRJUZgb
— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) October 8, 2023
The whole thing seems to be falling apart for the studio.
As The Blaze reported:
With a plan for three movies, the first film had a modest budget of $30 million. However, the expectation that the movie would blow previous iterations out of the water certainly could not have been based on the performances of previous films.
No “Exorcist” sequel has performed like the original, which brought in over $230 million domestically. “Exorcist II: The Heretic” made $30 million; “The Exorcist III” garnered $26 million; and “Exorcist: The Beginning” took in $41 million.
“Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist” made a shocking $251,495 in theaters off its $30 million budget in 2005.
The studio did its due diligence seemingly in every way, aside from its social justice-inspired diversity angle. It hired producer Jason Blum, who successfully produced horror films like “Get Out” and “M3GAN,” and David Gordon Green, who recently directed new installments of the “Halloween” franchise. The three remakes garnered nearly $500 million in total revenue.
The “Exorcist” franchise isn’t as simple as needing to make $133 million per film to justify its purchase, however, as the deal was reported to take talent fees, buyouts, back ends, and producer fees into account.
Looks like Hollywood has another huge flop on its hands.
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