Chiwetel Ejiofor joins Scarlett Johansson in new Exorcist movie

Chiwetel Ejiofor has joined the cast of Mike Flanagan's new take on The Exorcist.

The British actor will star alongside Scarlett Johansson, as well as previously announced co-stars Diane Lane and Jacobi Jupe, in the horror director's "radical new take" on the demonic possession series, which began with William Friedkin's 1973 original.

Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy actor will play an ex-con-turned-priest, while Johansson is portraying Hamnet star Jupe's mother.

Ejiofor previously starred in Flanagan's 2024 movie The Life of Chuck and worked with Johansson on her 2025 feature directorial debut Eleanor the Great, so The Exorcist will serve as a reunion in multiple ways.

While plot details are currently unknown, the new film will be an all-new story set in the same universe as the 1973 original - which starred Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow and Linda Blair - instead of being a sequel to 2023's The Exorcist: Believer.

Flanagan, who is known for projects like Doctor Sleep and The Haunting of Hill House, will direct and produce the film from his own script, and filming is about to get underway in New York City.

Universal executives spent a whopping $400 million (£295 million) in 2021 to buy the rights for a new Exorcist trilogy. However, they abandoned this plan after their first instalment, The Exorcist: Believer, was critically panned and underperformed at the box office in 2023. Director David Gordon Green stepped away from the project several months later.

The Exorcist is set to be released in cinemas in March 2027.