Scarlett Johansson Just Entered the Scariest Franchise in Horror History, and the First Trailer Is Pure Nightmare Fuel

There are roles that change a career, and then there are roles that rewrite what audiences think you can do. Scarlett Johansson just signed up for the second kind.

On Friday, October 9, horror director Mike Flanagan walked onto the Blumhouse panel at New York Comic Con and unveiled the first trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs, his new entry in the legendary horror franchise. Front and center: Johansson, playing an NYPD homicide detective named Julie Miller, hunting a killer so evil that an exorcism might be the only way to stop him.

This is not a possession story where the star spends two acts in a hospital bed. This is Johansson as the investigator, the one asking the questions, and the footage suggests she will not like the answers.

A detective, a killer, and a name written in blood

The official synopsis reads like a cold case file that got possessed. Thirteen years ago, New York City detective Julie Miller (Johansson) ended the terror reign of satanic serial killer Father Sunday. The case made her a hero, and she has thrown herself into her work ever since. Now a new killer scrawls her name in an altar boy’s blood on the walls of a church crypt, dragging her back into the darkness she believed she had buried with him.

Father Sunday is played by John Leguizamo, and the trailer does not flinch from showing his fate: strapped to an execution table. But in this franchise, death is never really the end of the story.

Aided by former prison chaplain Father William (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who heard Father Sunday’s final confession, and sharp rookie detective Gina Restrepo (Sasha Calle), Detective Miller discovers a thread linking a lineage of serial killers, from H.H. Holmes to the Zodiac, that could corrupt everything, and everyone, she loves with an evil that goes well beyond the mortal.

And then there is the detail that sent horror fans into a frenzy. In the trailer, Johansson’s badge reads “Kinderman.” Anyone who knows the franchise recognized it instantly: Lt. William Kinderman, played by George C. Scott in 1990’s cult sequel The Exorcist III, was also a detective investigating murders linked to a dead serial killer. USA Today reports that the new film’s plot appears heavily inspired by that very sequel. Flanagan would not confirm a family connection at Comic Con, but he openly admitted his admiration for Exorcist III. If Julie Miller is carrying that badge for a reason, this is not just a reboot. It is a bloodline.

The director who swears this is his scariest film yet

If any filmmaker alive has earned the right to take on The Exorcist, it is Mike Flanagan. The man behind Doctor Sleep, Hush, Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Fall of the House of Usher has spent a decade proving he can make smart people terrified. He also just wrapped a new Carrie series for Prime Video and wrote the screenplay for DC’s Clayface.

Standing in front of a packed Comic Con crowd, he did not downplay what he attempted. “This movie is so scary. I swear to God,” he said. “I could feel it on set. It was freaking me out in the chair, like off the monitor!” He described Martyrs as “unlike any other Exorcist movie that’s ever been made” and said the film takes the series in a “completely different direction.”

The Hollywood Reporter has called it a “radical new vision” of the property, and the stakes behind that phrase are enormous. Universal’s last attempt, 2023’s The Exorcist: Believer, brought back original star Ellen Burstyn and still collapsed under bad reviews and roughly $137 million in worldwide gross, far short of what the studio needed. Its planned sequel, The Exorcist: Deceiver, was scrapped. Flanagan is not reviving a healthy franchise. He is performing CPR on one.

A cast stacked with heavy hitters

Johansson, 41, does not have to carry the dread alone. Diane Lane plays Julie Miller’s mother, and Jacobi Jupe (Hamnet) plays her 12-year-old son, the boy whose safety raises the emotional stakes of every frame. Chiwetel Ejiofor brings his trademark gravity as Father William, the chaplain who heard the killer’s last confession.

The bench runs deep: Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Carl Lumbly, Carla Gugino, Kate Siegel, John Gallagher Jr., Benjamin Pajak, and Laurence Fishburne round out the ensemble. Many are Flanagan regulars, which tells you everything about the kind of movie this will be. The director casts people he trusts, then asks them to do terrible, terrifying things.

Why March 2027 cannot come fast enough

The Exorcist: Martyrs arrives in theaters on March 12, 2027, making it the seventh film in a franchise that started with the 1973 classic. For context on how rare a genuinely good Exorcist sequel is, consider the track record: decades of follow-ups that ranged from decent to disasters, with only Exorcist III holding real cult status.

Johansson has danced around the genre before, but this is her first full commitment to supernatural horror as a lead, and the timing is delicious. She is one of the biggest stars on the planet betting her momentum on a franchise that needs her more than she needs it. If Flanagan is right, and this really is the scariest thing he has ever made, The Exorcist: Martyrs will not just redeem the series. It will remind Hollywood that star power plus genuine craft can still make a room full of people afraid to go home in the dark.

Celebrities taking bold swings at genre franchises is becoming a pattern this year. Anne Hathaway just gave a five-star rave to Tom Cruise’s embattled Digger, showing how stars are using their platforms to reshape box office narratives. On the casting front, Jennifer Aniston’s Christmas comedy Naughty keeps adding heavyweights like Regina Hall, while Jessica Biel signed on for Searchlight’s Playmates. Hollywood’s A-list is not playing it safe anymore.

But none of those bets carry the curse that this one does. For more than fifty years, The Exorcist has been the franchise directors dream of fixing and audiences dream of forgiving. On March 12, 2027, we find out if Scarlett Johansson and Mike Flanagan are the ones who finally broke the spell.

For details on the trailer breakdown, see People’s coverage of the first footage and USA Today’s report from the New York Comic Con panel.