Scarlett Johansson Leads Dark Turn in The Exorcist: Martyrs

A single image can change the tone of an entire franchise. Universal Pictures has just done that, dropping a chilling still of Scarlett Johansson in The Exorcist: Martyrs that feels equal parts crime noir and old-school religious dread.

Johansson appears as Julie Miller, a hardened NYPD homicide detective and single mother, captured kneeling beside an unmoving body inside a church. Yellow police tape flutters. Stained-glass windows throw fractured light. An officer stands in the shadows. The corpse’s identity is deliberately left ambiguous, and that uncertainty gnaws at the frame.

We learn that Julie once put away a satanic serial killer known as Father Sundee—played by John Leguizamo—13 years ago. His execution, it turns out, was not an ending but a comma. New murders begin to mirror the old case, dragging Julie back into a past she thought closed. At the same time, her 12-year-old son, Max, becomes the target of a malevolent force, forcing Julie into uneasy alliances with Father William (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a young detective named Gina (Sasha Calle).

Mike Flanagan—who wrote and directed—has said he isn’t remaking the 1973 classic nor creating a straight sequel to the 2023 film The Exorcist: Believer. Instead he’s expanding the universe with a fresh, standalone story. Think of it as a crossover between a slow-burn serial-killer procedural and a cathedral of supernatural terror. Flanagan cites influences like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs alongside the original Exorcist; the result promises to be a tense collision of investigative grit and religious horror.

The cast reads like a roll call of heavyweights: Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Leguizamo, Sasha Calle, plus several of Flanagan’s frequent collaborators, including Kate Siegel, Carla Gugino and Rahul Kohli. Their presence suggests the film will balance intimate character moments against broader, more unsettling set pieces.

Marked for release on March 12, 2027, The Exorcist: Martyrs feels designed to unsettle fans who expect the familiar and surprise those who crave something new. A single photograph has already done the work of a trailer—raised questions, stoked dread and hinted at secrets—so the real question now is: are you ready to see what else the franchise has kept in the dark?