Russell Crowe, who has won Oscar for his work in 2000’s Gladiator, is set to star in The Pope’s Exorcist, a supernatural thriller feature directing Julius Avery for Screen Gems, the helmer behind World War II the 2018 horror movie Overlord.
Crowe will portray real-life figure Father Gabriele Amorth, a priest who acted as chief exorcist of the Vatican and who performed more than 100,000 exorcisms in his lifetime. (He passed away in 2016 at the age of 91.) Amorth wrote two memoirs — An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories — and detailed his experiences battling demons that had clutched people in their evil.
The current script is by Evan Spiliotopoulos with revisions by Chuck MacLean. That in turn is based on Michael Petroni-revised original drafts by Chester Hastings & R. Dean McCreary.
Producing are Doug Belgrad via his 2.0 Entertainment as well as Kaczmarek, who produces via his shingle, Jesus & Mary, Loyola president Eddie Siebert and Jeff Katz of Worldwide Katz.
Avery said in a statement “It’s been a goal of mine to work with Russell,” “To collaborate with him on the amazing Pope’s Exorcist is truly a dream come true.”
Scott Strauss, Michael Bitar and Giselle Johnson are overseeing the project for Screen Gems.
Crowe recently wrapped a turn in Sony’s Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter, and chews up the scenery as Zeus in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, with the latter opening July 8. He has a couple of movies in the hia can, including Peter Farrelly’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, set up at Apple, and Poker Face, which he directed, wrote, and is starring in opposite Liam Hemsworth and RZA.
Crowe is repped by Brillstein Entertainment and Goodman Genow. The start of production is planned for September in Ireland.
