Mike Flanagan Reveals Scarlett Johansson's Exorcist Thriller

A murder involving an altar boy draws a New York City detective back into a disturbing case in The Exorcist: Martyrs, the latest installment in the Exorcist franchise directed by Mike Flanagan. Unveiled at New York Comic Con, the film stars Scarlett Johansson as Julie Miller, a detective confronting a new killer whose actions suggest a connection to demonic possession.

According to the film's trailer, Miller previously dealt with satanic serial killer Father Sunday 13 years earlier. Her past returns to the forefront after another killer murders an altar boy and uses the victim's blood to write her name. The film is scheduled for release on March 12.

In the trailer, Miller discusses the historical relationship between serial killers and claims of supernatural influence while speaking with a priest.

"The FBI didn’t start interviewing serial killers until the 1970s," Miller tells a priest in the trailer. "H. H.

Holmes, America’s first serial killer, said he was possessed by Satan. The same goes for the Night Stalker, Jeffrey Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, the Son of Sam, all of them claimed to be possessed."

The film marks Flanagan's first entry in the Exorcist franchise. The filmmaker previously established his reputation through horror productions and adaptations of works including The Haunting of Hill House and The Life of Chuck.

Flanagan independently financed his first horror feature, Absentia. He began working with Blumhouse on his second feature, Oculus, in 2014. After an unsuccessful attempt to launch a new Exorcist trilogy in 2023, Blumhouse brought Flanagan aboard to develop a new direction for the franchise.

Flanagan has previously explained his approach to the original film while discussing the franchise with Josh Horowitz at New York Comic Con in 2024. He described the 1973 horror classic as a formative influence on his filmmaking career.

"The Exorcist is one of those movies that was incredibly formative for me," Flanagan told Josh Horowitz at NYCC 2024. "I saw it too young and it fucked me up. They’ve made so many sequels, prequels, and none have come close.

You can’t do The Exorcist. There’s no point in remaking it. There’s no point in trying to do that story again or better than the way it was done.

So you have to do something new. And you have to do something that rhymes with it and that harmonizes with it, but that isn’t trying to replace it."