Is Blumhouse’s The Exorcist its riskiest project yet?

With the rights alone costing around $400 million, Blumhouse’s The Exorcist is considered their biggest dice roll yet.

Blumhouse Productions has a number of movies on the radar, but their riskiest and most ambitious in the company’s 20+-year existence may be this fall’s The Exorcist sequel, at least according to founder Jason Blum.

The main reason for this stems from Universal and Peacock shelling out around $400 million for the rights, which are expected to spawn an entire trilogy. And none of that even factors into the actual production budget. As per IndieWire, Blum stated, “It’s so expensive. Usually the bar to success on everything we do because it’s inexpensive is incredibly low. For The Exorcist, it’s high.” Blum then clarified, saying, “It’s not high risk for Blumhouse…We’ve obviously already been paid, but it’s high risk for our partners. So when you ask me what the riskiest thing we’ve ever worked on is, I take that as for us or our financial partners. In the case of The Exorcist, that would be the biggest one, because it’s a high risk for Universal,” referring to the behemoth studio that Blumhouse has a first-look deal with.

Blumhouse’s The Exorcist sequel officially wrapped filming earlier this month, with a story that follows a man (Leslie Odom Jr.) with a possessed child who seeks the guidance of a certain someone who has had a similar experience, thus the casting of Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil. Linda Blair, who played the levitating, vomiting Regan in the 1973 original, will also be reprising her role, although the actress “was only on set for a few days, so she’s not in the film all that much.” Blair also served as an advisor, according to Blumhouse. David Gordon Green, who resurrected the Halloween franchise with his own trilogy (also for Blumhouse), is expected to helm all three movies.

Blumhouse’s The Exorcist sequel trilogy will make its debut on October 13th of this year, five decades after the original scared audiences to a $440+ million box office haul (over its entire run) and became one of the most iconic and controversial horror films ever.

How do you think The Exorcist will perform for Blumhouse at the box office?