The power of the Swifties compels you! Or at least it compelled producer Jason Blum to shift the highly anticipated “The Exorcist: Believer”’s release date. The film was set to hit theaters on October 13th, until Taylor Swift announced her Eras tour concert film would be released the same day.
“The one thing that scares me to death is Taylor Swift,” Blum told Entertainment Weekly. “We had this amazing Friday the 13th in October, which is the single best day to release a scary movie.”
Even though he originally seemed up to a showdown by writing the hashtag #Exorswift” on Twitter when the Eras announcement came out. (As a tongue-in-cheek reference to #Barbenheimer which went viral when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” hit theaters on the same day.) Later that same day it was decided to shift the release date for David Gordon Green‘s “The Exorcist: Believer.”
“Look what you made me do,” Blum posted, quoting a Swift song. “The Exorcist: Believer moves to 10/6/23 #TaylorWins.”
“Obviously, we moved off that [date] and we bowed our head to Taylor Swift,” Blum said. “It was too risky to see if ‘Exorswift’ was going to take or not. People will still have the Exorswift opportunity, so maybe we got to have our cake and eat it, too.”
“The Exorcist: Believer” is a direct sequel to the late William Friedkin’s groundbreaking 1973 film “The Exorcist.” It will star Lidya Jewett and Olivia O’Neill as a pair of demonically possessed children. The film will see the return of Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn reprising her role as Chris MacNeil. Who play the mother of the demonically possessed Regan in the original film. In “The Believer” MacNeil is sought out for her unique expertise with possessed pre-teens. With the hope that she can aid the new crop of parents dealing with the phenomenon.
“I really give David Gordon Green credit for that,” Blum says. “He was able to get Jamie Lee Curtis comfortable [on 2018’s Halloween], and David got Ellen to feel comfortable to join us in this iteration of her iconic movie.”
“The Exorcist: Believer” will now hit theaters on October 6th, while the Era’s concert will now undoubtedly dominate the 13th. You can check out the trailer for Green’s movie below:
