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Most movie franchises begin at the beginning, but EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING came 31 years after the 1973 original.

The supernatural horror thriller EXORCIST, which William Friedkin directed and William Peter Blatty produced and adapted from his best-selling novel, was made for $11M and did $441.3M worldwide. The 2004 BEGINNING prequel, which opened Aug. 20, 2004 via Warner Bros., starred Stellan Skarsgård, Izabella Scorupco, and James D’Arcy. It was the series’ fourth episode and a boxoffice disaster that grossed just $78.1M. Its original $35M budget had soared from massive reshoots and much additional post-production work to over $90M.

Given its troubled path to the screen, the project, itself, may have been  cursed. Things got off to a terrible start when director John Frankenheimer, who’d been on board since 2001 had to exit as his health declined. He died about a month later.

Morgan Creek Productions president James Robinson, who produced BEGINNING, hoped to create a new film from footage that had already been shot for DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST by director Paul Schrader (AMERICAN GIGOLO). Morgan Creek didn’t expect DOMINION to do well at the boxoffice and thought they could stitch something new together from what they’d already paid for.

Schrader had been pushed to pour on more gore in DOMINION than he wanted to do. When his first cut had more psychological drama than scares, Schrader was sent packing. Knowing they needed a new movie, Morgan Creek and WB reportedly tried getting Friedkin to return.

In the end, they hired Renny Harlin (CLIFFHANGER) to direct from a new script that first-time screenwriter Alexi Hawley had rewritten from a draft by Caleb Carr and William Wisher. Hawley got screenplay credit for the new BEGINNING while Wisher and Carr received story credit. During the development of the prequel’s screenplay going back to 1997, Blatty had turned down overtures to write it. Morgan Creek finally went with a draft by Carr, which included some material from Wisher’s earlier draft.

When Harlin first looked at what Schrader had shot, he told Robinson  nothing could be done with it and re-shooting was the only way out. Robinson surprised him by green lighting a new shoot with a bigger budget and a bigger directing fee for Harlin.

Harlin re-shot almost all of Schrader’s movie to make BEGINNING. After Harlin’s version failed at the boxoffice, WB released Schrader’s DOMINION in 2005.
Ironically, with all the reshooting Morgan Creek paid for, the trailer promoting Harlin’s BEGINNING is said to have used footage from Schrader’s movie. Despite millions of new dollars having gone into BEGINNING, its trailer showed the old footage to moviegoers — and apparently no one knew the difference.