Variety is reporting that Fox has ordered a pilot for a new series based on William Blatty’s The Exorcist, the book (and film) that begat about a billion religious horror thrillers in the ’70s and ’80s, while singlehandedly squandering much of the world’s dwindling supplies of split pea soup. The new show is being described as “a modern reinvention” of the tale of an old priest and a young priest battling a mysterious demonic intrusion, a description that we can only hope means the demon Pazuzu will now be hiding in the evil-festooned ridges and gullies of the internet (in a sort of “FearDotCom,” if you will.)
Silliness aside, though, this is a franchise that started levitating the bed over the shark in its second outing, and has already been prequeled and rebooted so often that whatever tarnish the original is going to pick up has already settled hard. So it probably won’t hurt for Fox to take a serialized run at the story, which promises to feature “two very different men tackling one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession,” a premise that doesn’t sound entirely without merit. (And hey, maybe we’ll even get really lucky, and get another surprisingly great Exorcist III out of the deal.)