10 Upcoming Horror Movies That Might Save Franchises
These horror franchises might be coming back in a big way.
No movie genre loves a franchise quite like horror, and if a single horror film hits at the box office, you can bet your bottom dollar that the studio will milk it to death, until audiences are sick of seeing it and the grosses fall off a cliff.
Ongoing horror franchises tend to ebb and flow from high points to low, and then back to high again if they're lucky - if the producers can find a filmmaker with a killer idea to pull it back from the brink.
Consider how Halloween 2018 rescued the IP from decades of poor critical performance, or Saw X delivered the series' worthiest sequel in many years.
These films made these franchises feel relevant once more and got fans excited about them again, and if these upcoming movies deliver on their potential, they could be next for the glow-up treatment.
These 10 impending entries into some of the most iconic horror franchises around mark a concerted effort to revive series which have lost considerable ground and cultural relevance in recent years. Here's hoping each of them pulls it off...
10. Mike Flanagan's The Exorcist
It's frankly impressive that The Exorcist franchise has delivered so many dud sequels, prequels, and spin-offs from William Friedkin's original 1973 masterpiece.
Aside from the underappreciated The Exorcist III, the series has struck out every single time, most recently with David Gordon Green's woefully undercooked "legacy sequel" Exorcist: Believer.
With Warner Bros. taking their two planned sequels to Believer off the docket following its critical and commercial underperformance, it seemed like the studio was putting the IP on ice for a good while, but not quite.
And to their credit, they came back swinging with one of the few announcements which could possibly get horror fans interested in The Exorcist again.
Last May, the great Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House) was confirmed to be writing and directing an Exorcist reboot which has been deemed a "radical new take" on the franchise.
Given Flanagan's penchant for horror that's both nerve-jangling and deeply character-driven, he's pretty much a dream choice to rejuvenate the Exorcist for a new generation.
If Flanagan of all people can't pull it off, then it's probably safe to call the Exorcist a dead IP.