Scarlett Johansson is back in horror, and the first images from Mike Flanagan’s remake of The Exorcist show her on set with a cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sasha Calle, Diane Lane and Jacobi Jupe. The newly released photos, which mostly capture the group on city streets, are the clearest look yet at the film that is scheduled for March 12, 2027.
For Johansson, the photos mark a return to a genre she has visited only a few times, most notably in Eight-Legged Freaks and the 2013 A24 film Under the Skin. That alone will draw attention, but the timing matters too: the The Exorcist name is being tested again after The Exorcist: Believer drew a 22% approval rating and underperformed at the box office, helping sink the planned follow-up films that had been built around it. Against that history, every glimpse of Flanagan’s version is being read as a sign of whether the franchise can still reset itself.
The photos do not answer the question most people will have about Johansson’s role, and that missing detail is part of the appeal. Flanagan has not yet shown the film’s shape beyond the street-level images, and the cast list alone suggests he is keeping the project tightly under wraps as it moves toward release. The franchise has survived sequels, a messy prequel production, a TV series later revealed as a direct sequel to the original film and then the 2023 reboot effort that stalled out, so the new remake arrives with a lot to prove before a frame of the finished movie has reached audiences.
What is clear today is that Johansson has made the kind of horror return that turns a set photo into a franchise checkpoint. The film is still more than a year away, but March 12, 2027 is now the date that matters, because it is when Flanagan’s The Exorcist finally has to answer for itself.
