Like many other dethroned A-listers of his generation, Oscar winner Russell Crowe has found himself a steady career hustling far further down the food chain, headlining B-movies he once would have balked at. The last few years have seen the famed actor crop up in gonzo road rage thriller Unhinged, shepherd the other Hemsworths in war drama Land of Bad, lead the barely released crime thriller Sleeping Dogs earlier this year and become the pope’s exorcist in The Pope’s Exorcist.
The latter became something of a surprise hit, first theatrically and then on Netflix, albeit in a rather jokey way, the film most easily remembered for the many memes of Crowe on a scooter. Its success was such that it not only guaranteed a sequel (The Pope’s Exorcist 2 is coming), but it also led to another of his exorcism movies getting saved from streaming hell and being delivered to the big screen instead, this weekend’s The Exorcism, a film originally shot back in 2019. It has an interesting backstory, loosely inspired by director Joshua John Miller’s experience as the son of actor Jason Miller who played Father Karras in The Exorcist. His father’s tales of a haunted set led to a film about an actor starring in a remake of what appears to be The Exorcist then becoming more explicitly plagued by demonic forces during production.
