Screen Gems shared the first trailer for The Pope’s Exorcist, their upcoming supernatural horror movie based on the real life memoirs of Father Gabriele Amorth.

The trailer gives us the first look at Russell Crowe as Amorth, the personal exorcist to the Diocese of Rome and the Pope himself. The film is a loose retelling from his memoirs An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories.

Unlike most exorcism movies that seem to purely focus on the demonic possession phenomenon, The Pope’s Exorcist seems to tease an underlying mystery that is woven throughout. Here’s the first trailer:

Was that a Diablo-like tomb with a big evil throne? Did Amorth get possessed himself? How can the Pope’s own exorcist get possessed? What kind of demon are they dealing with here?

Amorth himself attested to personally performing tens of thousands of exorcisms in his memoirs. However accurate to Amorth’s memoirs this turns out, it’s certainly an interesting potential twist that obviously got me interested enough to check it out.

Also starring alongside Crowe are Daniel Zovatto, Alex Essoe, and Franco Nero as the Pope. Production on the film began in 2020 when Screen Gems bought the rights to Amorth’s story, and after some key staffing changes, filming began in October 2022.

Key staff for the final film include Julius Avery as director, Doug Belgrad of 2.0 Entertainment as producer, and final script revisions were handled by Michael Petroni and Evan Spiliotopoulos.

Here’s a look at its gnarly poster:

The Pope’s Exorcist is scheduled to premiere in the United States on April 14, 2023, by Sony Pictures.