Russell Crowe-Led "The Pope's Exorcist" First Look Featurette Unveiled

The first look featurette at Academy Award winner Russell Crowe's supernatural thriller movie "The Pope’s Exorcist" has been unveiled. 

Crowe plays Father Gabriele Amorth, the legendary Italian priest who performed over 100,000 exorcisms for the Vatican—drawing on his international bestselling memoirs "An Exorcist Tells His Story" and "An Exorcist: More Stories".

Father Amorth, who died in 2016, left behind a trove of additional accounts of his exploits pulling the devil out of people all over the world.

Two years after his death, Screen Gems acquired his life rights for the project, along with rights to his memoirs.

"The Pope’s Exorcist" has been in development at Screen Gems for some time, with Ángel Gómez having previously been attached to direct since 2020.

Evan Spiliotopoulos wrote the current draft of the script, with revisions by Chuck MacLean, which was based on Michael Petroni-revised original drafts by Chester Hastings and R. Dean McCreary.

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.

The featurette highlights Amorth’s role with the Catholic Church and how he performed thousands of exorcisms for more than three and a half decades. 

This made him a controversial figure for the nature of his work battling against this kind of unproven demonic evil. He worked around the same time as the famous demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren who were well known for their own set of controversial methods and theories. 

Similarly to the Warrens, Father Amorth documented his cases which led to the movie.

Along with Crowe, the movie stars Ralph Ineson, Alex Essoe, and Franco Nero.

"The Pope’s Exorcist" is conjuring up in theaters on April 14.