The Exorcist: Martyrs Trailer — Flanagan's Scary Reboot

The Exorcist Martyrs trailer has officially dropped, and it confirms that Mike Flanagan is rebuilding the horror franchise from the ground up. Starring Scarlett Johansson as NYPD homicide detective Julie Miller, this seventh entry ditches the familiar possessed-child formula for something colder and meaner: a ritual-murder investigation where the evidence keeps pointing at something no longer human. It lands only in theatres on 12 March 2027.

Trailer breakdown: a crime case with the Devil in the file

Unveiled by Flanagan and Chiwetel Ejiofor at New York Comic Con on 9 October 2026, the first full trailer plays less like a classic Exorcist film and more like a serial-killer procedural. The setup: thirteen years ago, detective Julie Miller ended the reign of terror of a satanic serial killer known as Father Sunday. The case made her a hero, and she has buried herself in her work ever since. Now a new killer scrawls her name in an altar boy's blood on the walls of a church crypt, dragging her back into the darkness she thought she had buried with him.

The investigation turns supernatural when Miller, aided by former prison chaplain Father William and rookie detective Gina Restrepo, uncovers a thread linking a lineage of serial killers — from H. H. Holmes to the Zodiac — suggesting the killers who claimed the Devil made them do it might have been telling the truth. The trailer's closing beat brings the horror home: the evil has reached Miller's own house, and her 12-year-old son Max is in its sights. Flanagan has said horror at home is particularly frightening, because that is where you are meant to be the safest.

The Exorcist: Martyrs cast — every confirmed role

Two-time Academy Award nominee Scarlett Johansson leads the ensemble as Detective Julie Miller. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Father William, the former prison chaplain who heard Father Sunday's final confession, while Sasha Calle is rookie detective Gina Restrepo.

The supporting cast is stacked: Diane Lane plays Mary's mother, who has moved in to help raise Miller's son Max (Jacobi Jupe). Scoot McNairy is paroled convict Clay Silver, Gil Bellows plays Peter Nicks, a former acolyte of Father Sunday, and Laurence Fishburne is the revered Father Nichol. John Leguizamo returns in flashback as the original nightmare, Father Sunday.

Release date: 12 March 2027, theatres only

The Exorcist: Martyrs opens exclusively in theatres on 12 March 2027, distributed by Universal Pictures. It is a Blumhouse–Atomic Monster and Morgan Creek Entertainment production, made in association with Flanagan's own Red Room Pictures, and based on characters created by Exorcist author William Peter Blatty. David Robinson, Jason Blum and Flanagan produce, with Alexandra Magistro and Ryan Turek as executive producers. Flanagan wrote, directed, produced — and edited — the film himself.

Why this is a franchise revival, not just another sequel

Universal paid a reported $400 million for the franchise rights in 2021 and planned a trilogy under director David Gordon Green. That plan collapsed after The Exorcist: Believer (2023) flopped with critics and audiences, and the proposed sequel Exorcist: Deceiver — once dated for March 2026 — was scrapped entirely. Flanagan was then handed the keys to the property.

His approach leans on The Exorcist III (1990), the sequel many fans rate as the franchise's best after William Friedkin's 1973 original. The trailer drops a mention of Legion, the title of Blatty's novel that film was based on. Flanagan told IGN that Martyrs works as a standalone story, but fans of The Exorcist III will find extra bits to delight in, plus "a thread for the super fans to pick up that runs all the way back through The Exorcist III to Friedkin's original". Speaking to The Playlist's Bingeworthy podcast, he added: "It's very much a whole different thing. It's a completely new story, completely new characters."

He has also been blunt about the tone. Flanagan told Esquire that audiences are "not seeing a retread of The Exorcist", citing Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs as touchstones — and confirmed the film will deliver an actual exorcism, so the title is not a bait-and-switch.

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