Guillermo del Toro's unrealized projects: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:52, 1 May 2025

Revision as of 17:22, 5 May 2025

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===''Exorcist: Chapter 4 Verse I''===

In the late 1990s, between the releases of ''[[Mimic (film)|Mimic]]'' and ''[[The Devil's Backbone]]'', del Toro [[Pitch (filmmaking)|pitched]] himself to direct a fourth installment in [[The Exorcist (franchise)|''The Exorcist'' film series]] for [[Morgan Creek Entertainment]]. His version would have been titled ''Exorcist: Chapter 4 Verse I'' and would have seen [[Lankester Merrin|Father Merrin]] brought in to investigate the murder of a priest by a possessed child in the [[Vatican City|Vatican]] during [[World War II]]. Del Toro later spoke of the project in a live interview in 2006:

<blockquote>"[The story] was very epic, setting up what followed. So I finished my take about ''The Exorcist'' and [the Morgan Creek executives] listened patiently and then said, 'That's fantastic, but there's only one thing. We want the movie but we don't want there to be an [[exorcism]] in it.' So I said, 'But it's called ''The Exorcist''.' 'Yeah, but the last movie had an exorcism and it didn't make money.' That was the last meeting I took on that one. But that's sort of the Hollywood principle."<ref>{{cite web|author=Kermode, Mark|author-link=Mark Kermode|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/nov/21/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank1|title=Guillermo del Toro - part two|website=[[The Guardian]]|date=November 21, 2006|access-date=December 16, 2023}}</ref></blockquote>

Instead, the prequels ''[[Exorcist: The Beginning]]'' and ''[[Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist]]'' were made by directors [[Renny Harlin]] and [[Paul Schrader]] respectively, but were both critical and financial failures.