‘The Last Exorcism’ Isn’t the Last

Although Lionsgate would like you to believe that it was a complete shock that “The Last Exorcism” did relatively well at the box office, it really isn’t. It seems like everywhere you looked, there were shocking images hitting you over the head promoting the film. There were bus stop banners, inescapable television commercials, and an online viral campaign that was on the border of being able to claim as Internet spam.

It wasn’t hard for the studio and everyone else involved to recoup their money for “The Last Exorcism,” since it only cost $2 million to make. Therefore, I don’t know why I was so shocked to hear that a sequel is in the works to last year’s not-so-surprising moderate hit. It grossed somewhere in the area of $67 million, so I should have recognized the warning sign.

There’s no announcement as to what they’re going to call the film, but my vote would be “The Last of the Last Exorcisms,” “The Final Last Exorcism,” or “The Next Last Exorcism.” I can only wonder where they’re going to go with this flick. It seems like they are definitely stretching the source material a bit thin on this one.

The ending of “The Last Exorcism” left us wondering if faux exorcist and preacher Cotton Marcus was still alive in the backwoods of Louisiana. He had stumbled upon some sort of cult ritual that bared a striking resemblance to one we had already seen back in 1968 involving a housewife named Rosemary. Could it be that the very same satanic cult from that movie moved from New York City to rural Louisiana? To make a long story short, the ending of “The Last Exorcism” ruined a relatively good first hour and 20 minutes of a film.

Fairly new scribe Damien Chazelle is writing the script for “The Last Exorcism” sequel. “The original film was written by Andrew Gurland and Huck Botko. Chazelle has penned a couple of movies that are in development entitled “Grand Piano” and “The Claim.” He also directed and wrote “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,” which was his feature film debut.

Chazelle could take a couple of different directions with the script for “The Last Exorcism” sequel. He could continue with Cotton Marcus’s story somehow. He could move forward and have the cult terrorizing someone else, or he could do the “where and how did this cult come about?” prequel thing. Then, there’s the million-dollar question. “Will it be another found-footage film or move on to something else like ‘Blair Witch 2′ did?” I wish I could say I was interested in finding out.

There’s still no news if “The Last Exorcism” director Daniel Stamm will be back for the sequel. He presently has two movies in development. One entitled “Reincarnate” for 2012 and another called “Martyrs” for 2013.”

“The Last Exorcism” sequel is being funded by Studio Canal. It is set to begin production in Fall of 2011.

For more articles by Eric Shirey, check out:

Zombies Beware! Alice is Back for ‘Resident Evil: Retribution’
‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ Not a Ghost Story
Interview with ‘Final Destination 5′ Actor Miles Fisher

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