Scarlett Johansson's Julie Miller looking uncertainly at her son in a dark room in The Exorcist: Martyrs NYCC overlay

Mike Flanagan has a very different story in store in The Exorcist: Martyrs trailer.

Serving as the first proper reboot of the classic horror franchise, Flanagan's new film centers on Scarlett Johansson as a New York City Police Department homicide detective who begins investigating a string of ritualistic killings seemingly tied to a case in her past, only to discover a much more sinister force behind both the original case and new one. Written and directed by Flanagan, the new Exorcist features a star-studded roster, with a variety of frequent collaborators, including Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Carla Gugino and Samantha Sloyan, among many others.

Now, in honor of the film's New York City Comic Con 2026 presence, Universal Pictures has unveiled the first official Exorcist: Martyrs trailer. The video, as shown below, offers the first proper insight into Flanagan's upcoming horror reboot, namely that Johansson stars as a detective whose past involving a serial killer, played by John Leguizamo, looks to be coming back to haunt her. The trailer also teases the very dark direction that Flanagan is heading with the new Exorcist film, which hits theaters on March 12, from its corpses left in Satanic ritual states to mysterious entities haunting her and her young son. Check out the trailer below:

The Exorcist: Martyrs notably marks Flanagan's first foray back into franchise storytelling in close to a decade, his last venture being that of Doctor Sleep, which adapted both Stephen King's 2013 novel and served as a sequel to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining film. It also comes after Morgan Creek Productions and Universal aimed to revive the franchise with David Gordon Green in the same vein as his Halloween trilogy, only for Believer's critical and commercial disappointment to lead to a scrapping of two sequels.

Even before he brought Johansson and the rest of his star-studded cast onboard, Flanagan was very enthusiastic about his plans for The Exorcist: Martyrs, not only teasing it as being something entirely new for the horror franchise, but also aiming to make it the scariest movie he's ever made. The latter goal was even recently echoed by Samantha Sloyan, with whom Flanagan just reunited for his Carrie adaptation, as she hailed it as the scariest thing she's seen of his.

The official Exorcist: Martyrs trailer may keep much of its story under wraps, but does offer quite a bit of clarity on the direction Flanagan is taking the film. With its detective storyline and ritualistic serial killer, the movie immediately sparks flashbacks to 1990's The Exorcist III, helmed by the franchise-launching author William Peter Blatty. However, the visual appearance of the bodies at the crime scenes are clearly different from that of the Gemini Killer, pointing to a more standalone story for Martyrs.

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One notable takeaway from the Exorcist: Martyrs trailer are the quick shots of cult-like figures throughout the film, including many with executor-style hoods over their heads directly attacking multiple characters. If this proves true, this would fulfill the new direction promise Flanagan has made, as no prior film installment has ever featured such a group. The only Exorcist project to feature a cult was that of Fox's two-season series, which acted as a legacy sequel to the original before Green's film retconned it.

The introduction of a cult would also go a long way to explaining the Exorcist: Martyrs title, as both the cult members themselves and the killers at the heart of Johansson's investigations may be a form of sacrifice for whatever entity they're worshiping. Whether that will be the franchise's iconic demon Pazuzu remains unclear, but even if it doesn't, it will certainly reshape audiences' expectations for the series going forward.

Release Date	March 12, 2027
Director	Mike Flanagan
Writers	Mike Flanagan
Producers	Jason Blum, David Robinson, Mike Flanagan
Franchise(s)	The Exorcist

Cast

John Leguizamo (Father Sunday)
Scarlett Johansson
Jacobi Jupe
Chiwetel Ejiofor

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Scarlett Johansson & Mike Flanagan’s Exorcist Reboot Officially Unveils Detective Crime Story