‘The Exorcist’ Star Ellen Burstyn Honors “Smart, Cultured, Fearless And Wildly Talented” William Friedkin

Ellen Burstyn has paid her respects to William Friedkin, the filmmaker who guided her to a second Oscar nomination with his classic 1973 horror The Exorcist.

“My friend Bill Friedkin was an original; smart, cultured, fearless and wildly talented,” said Burstyn on Monday. “On the set, he knew what he wanted, would go to any length to get it and was able to let it go if he saw something better happening. He was undoubtedly a genius.”

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Friedkin died in Los Angeles today, aged 87, of an unknown cause. Burstyn starred as Chris MacNeil, the mother of possessed teenager Regan (Linda Blair), in the filmmaker’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, and is reprising her role in a new trilogy that David Gordon Green is helming for Blumhouse and Universal.

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The first title in the set, The Exorcist: Believer, is due for release on October 13. Our hero is Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.), who, since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, has raised their daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out MacNeil, the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before.

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The trilogy’s second installment, The Exorcist: Deceiver, is scheduled to open April 18, 2025. A date and title for the third installment haven’t yet been set.

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