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At this point in cinema history, "Guillermo del Toro horror" is almost a subgenre unto itself. But there was a time when the future Oscar-winner was working on projects that were not solely his creation - Blade 2 and Hellboy are perfect examples. There are a couple other franchises, however, that del Toro was apparently offered a chance to tackle but ultimately declined. Such was the case with the half-century-old franchise The Exorcist, which del Toro revealed he nearly took part in - only to be assuaged by an impossible studio request.

The story comes from a panel that a pre-Hellboy del Toro did at the Toronto International Film Festival all the way back in 2001. Part of that discussion focused on del Toro's experience with making 'studio' movies, a process that the director compared to producers ordering from a fast food drive-thru, in that filmmakers are expected to provide whatever the studios wanted, no matter how quickly and no matter how incomprehensible the order was. 

And there was no better case of these nonsensical requests than when 20th Century Fox reached out to del Toro about making a fourth Exorcist film. 

"When I got offered The Exorcist 4," said the Oscar winner, "I said I'd like to call it 'Exorcist 4: Chapter 1,' like in the Bible. You know, like the verses in the Bible. I pitched the idea of seeing Father Merrin as a young man, and to set it in the Vatican. Which I know is perverse.

"Then they said," del Toro continues, "'Well, this sounds really interesting. But the only thing is: can it not have an exorcism in it? Because the exorcism was really crappy in The Exorcist 3.' And I said, 'Well, it's called The Exorcist - what do you want?' They said 'Well, think about it.' I said, 'I'll think about it, goodbye.'"

As we know, Guillermo del Toro's Exorcist 4 never got made, and technically, neither did Fox's. Presumably some time after the conversation recounted in del Toro's story, the rights to make an Exorcist movie transferred over to Warner Bros. The movie they made, called The Exorcist: The Beginning, does indeed see the titular character of Father Merrin as a younger man, and though characters discuss performing an exorcism in the film, there is no point at which one is actually performed.

At 11%, it is the lowest-rated Exorcist film on IMDb.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." We couldn't agree more, which is why we've cobbled together a couple pieces to send a chill up your spine. Join Popverse as we explore:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.