Taylor Swift's Concert Film Scares The Exorcist: Believer Off Its Friday The 13th Release Date
Who would you pick to come out on top in a battle of wills: The horrifying power of the supernatural, or the immovable object that is Taylor Swift? If you chose the latter, congratulations on being among the first to realize that we well and truly must be living in a simulation. On the heels of today's barn-burning news that Taylor Swift's Eras Tour will be making its way to theaters in a special cinematic event, the rest of the industry is now scrambling to get out of its way. Swift's first victim is none other than "The Exorcist: Believer," which is now moving off its oh-so-perfect release date of Friday, October 13, 2023.
The shift was announced by Jason Blum himself on Twitter in a tacit acknowledgement that the rest of the movie business simply must adapt or die against the sheer power of the Swifties. The horror studio head took to social media to self-deprecatingly wave the white flag, dropping an absolute no-brainer of a song reference as he revealed the new release date for the latest movie in the "Exorcist" franchise. The sequel will now drop a week earlier than anticipated, on October 6, 2023.
Look what you made me do.
The Exorcist: Believer moves to 10/6/23#TaylorWins
— Jason Blum (@jason_blum) August 31, 2023
"Look what you made me do. The Exorcist: Believer moves to 10/6/23 #TaylorWins"
RIP Exorswift
That sound you hear is the gears of the Blumhouse marketing machine dying a quick and brutal death as the studio has been robbed of what they surely hoped would be the next #Barbenheimer movement. #Exorswift (or, if you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, #Taylorcist) is officially no more. The biggest mega-star on the planet has come out on top in our imaginary battle against the sixth total "Exorcist" movie, which is a sentence that I simply never imagined myself typing out when I first got this job. Still, despite presumably catering to very different demographics, it makes a whole lot of business sense to get out of Swift's way entirely and allow her upcoming concert film to rake in all the profits and attention it will undoubtedly earn — as tempting as it might've been for the Blumhouse horror sequel to serve as a bit of counterprogramming, as Swift's film is scheduled to run between October 13 to at least October 16.
"The Exorcist: Believer" is directed by the "Halloween" revival director David Gordon Green, from a script credited to the team of Green, Peter Sattler, Scott Teems, and actor/writer Danny McBride. The sequel stars Leslie Odom, Jr., Ann Dowd, Lidya Jewett, Olivia Marcum, Jennifer Nettles, Okwui Okpokwasili, Raphael Sbarge, and original "Exorcist" star Ellen Burstyn. Relatively minor release date change aside, the film is still on track to release as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of William Friedkin's 1973 classic. Here's the official synopsis:
When his daughter, Angela, and her friend Katherine, show signs of demonic possession, it unleashes a chain of events that forces single father Victor Fielding to confront the nadir of evil. Terrified and desperate, he seeks out Chris MacNeil, the only person alive who's witnessed anything like it before.