Academy Award winner Russell Crowe is all set to star in Julius Avery’s upcoming supernatural thriller The Pope’s Exorcist for Screen Gems.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, 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.
Avery will be directing The Pope’s Exorcist from a screenplay by Evan Spiliotopoulos, with revisions by Chuck MacLean. The script was based on original drafts by Chester Hastings & R. Dean McCreary, which received revisions from Michael Petroni. Per the report, Screen Gems previously acquired the life rights to the chief exorcist from Michael Patrick Kaczmarek and media company Loyola Productions; the deal included rights to Amorth’s two international best-selling tomes.
“It’s been a goal of mine to work with Russell,” Avery said in a statement. “To collaborate with him on the amazing Pope’s Exorcist is truly a dream come true.” Doug Belgrad of 2.0 Entertainment will produce along with Michael Patrick Kaczmarek for Jesus & Mary, Jeff Katz of Worldwide Katz and Loyola Productions President Eddie Siebert, with Scott Strauss, Michael Bitar and Giselle Johnson overseeing the project for Screen Gems.
On the work front, Russell Crowe won an Oscar for his work in 2000’s Gladiator. He recently wrapped a turn in Sony’s Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter, and will next star as Zeus in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, which is opening July 8.
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