MOVIE NEWS – The Exorcist: Believer is a critical failure, but it may not be such a commercial failure after all.

The tragic critical reception of The Exorcist: Believer raises the question, will the latest Exorcist film fail at the box office? The film debuted worldwide on October 6, 2023. One week before the previously scheduled October 13, 2023 release, to avoid competing at the box office with the highly anticipated Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.

While The Eras Tour has already generated over $100 million in advance ticket sales, The Exorcist: The Believer still failed to exceed its announced production budget from opening weekend US ticket sales.

With a sequel already set for a 2025 release, the film’s poor critical and commercial response jeopardises the entire franchise. Director David Gordon Green owes his fame to the successful 2018 reboot of the Halloween franchise. It seems he didn’t have such luck with The Exorcist. In any case, Universal Pictures will likely continue with the planned Exorcist trilogy. But it won’t be known if Green will be back in the lead until box office numbers are finalised in the coming weeks.

The Exorcist: Believer Opened Under Expectations

The Exorcist: Believer was widely advertised and hyped. In fact, the week before its premiere, it became the episodic subject of the popular reality show Big Brother. But the box office fell short of expectations, which initially predicted the film would bring in $30-35 million domestically in its opening weekend.

In the end, with an opening weekend box office total of roughly $26.5 million and a global total of almost $44 million, The Exorcist: The Believer didn’t quite live up to its potential, though it wasn’t too far from the original estimates.

With a production budget of $30 million, the film still has plenty of time before the Halloween season to avoid being the franchise’s biggest flop. The original film became a cultural phenomenon and a milestone in film history. It grossed nearly $231 million domestically and just under $429 million at the worldwide box office. The Exorcist’s budget in 1973 was $12 million. That equates to roughly $83 million in 2023, adjusted for inflation. The franchise’s biggest flop was 2004’s Exorcist: The Beginning, which grossed under $44 million worldwide on a whopping $78 million budget.

Would the $400 million deal have been an exaggeration?!

Universal and Peacock paid $400 million for the rights to the upcoming Exorcist trilogy. With that in mind, the threshold for the film’s success is undoubtedly higher. Especially when you consider how the other two Exorcist films will perform in the coming years. With the overwhelming critical reception and early box office numbers of The Exorcist: Believer, there are already reasons to be concerned about the longevity and overall quality of The Exorcist: Deceiver and beyond.

It could be potentially disastrous for Universal, Peacock and Blumhouse if the sequels were cancelled after poor reviews and Believer’s earnings.

Instead of giving up on the new Exorcist trilogy entirely, it is much more likely that the director will be replaced. At least if the movie doesn’t turn a significant profit this Halloween season. While David Gordon Green is still widely praised for his 2018 revival of Halloween and one of the best instalments in the horror franchise, his subsequent efforts in Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends were also major disappointments.

The film could still be a blockbuster with a bit of luck

The best thing about The Exorcist: Believer is its relatively small budget of $30 million. The film nearly achieved all of that in its American opening weekend and surpassed that number globally by well over 33% in just a few days. The Halloween hype of horror movies hitting theatres will likely give the film a much-needed boost at the box office. You can benefit greatly from the general lack of horror movies hitting theatres in October 2023.

If you can jump over the low financial bar of your modest budget, The Exorcist: Believer may be the way to salvation.

It’s also worth noting that the film’s critical reception is somewhat harsher than if it were a stand-alone, independent horror film. No Exorcist sequel has been able to scratch the surface in terms of quality and impact like the original 1973 film. The latter persists to this day. While seeing The Exorcist in theatres this Halloween season is always the safer bet, the Exorcist franchise still has modern life with this latest instalment. Believer may surprisingly prove to be a financially successful production as Halloween approaches.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes