3 Reasons The Pope’s Exorcist could be the next Conjuring franchise

Russell Crowe returned to cinemas this past weekend with The Pope’s Exorcist, a horror film that stuck closely to the beats of Warner Bros’ Conjuring films. The film had a great opening at the box office, taking the number 2 spot while receiving a mid reception from critics and audiences. You can read our full review here

Below are the top 3 reasons why The Pope’s Exorcist could be the next Conjuring universe.

1. It’s cheap! This film was made on a budget of 18 million dollars. It took in 9.2 million in the USA alone in its first weekend of release and worldwide it currently sits at 36 million.  Compare this to Universal’s Dracula reboot titled Renfield which also debuted this weekend, which has a budget of 65 million dollars and took in just 7 million dollars. This is a huge disappointment for the studio and shows Sony that they can make a modest profit of a low-budget horror film with a franchise attached to it. While Crowe may not return for the title role, you could easily continue the character and his investigations into the many other sites (199 to be exact!)
2. Sony needs a horror franchise. Warner Bros Discovery confirmed this week that their new Max streaming service will feature a TV show based on the I.T films titled Welcome to Derry and a weekly show based on the Conjuring films. 2023 has already shown it’s a great year for horror with Megan and Scream 6 raking in big numbers at the box office.
3. The person it’s based on has many stories and possessions to explore. Father Gabriele Amorth famously performed over 50,000 exorcisms and has claimed to have seen the devil himself, warned the world about ISIS and looked into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlando (make sure you check out the Netflix series titled Vatican Girl) There are many books, documents and memories that can be used as a basis for many future films.

The Pope’s Exorcist is playing in cinemas now.