Ellen Burstyn spent 1973 watching Linda Blair levitate, scream, and turn a family home into Satan's least welcoming Airbnb. In William Friedkin's The Exorcist, her, Chris MacNeil, desperately tried to save her possessed daughter, anchoring a horror classic that still has audiences reconsidering their bedtime prayers.

Five decades, sequels, and several demonic do-overs later, Hollywood has apparently misplaced the franchise's off switch. Mike Flanagan is preparing The Exorcist: Martyrs, starring Scarlett Johansson, and Burstyn sounds ready to hang up the holy water.

Her reaction to another installment is brief, weary, and enough to make Pazuzu reconsider his comeback tour.

At 93, Ellen Burstyn has earned the right to look a demon in its yellow eyes and ask whether it has considered retirement. During an interview with Variety about her career and poetry audiobook, Burstyn was asked about Flanagan's upcoming film. Her response required no incantation.

“Isn't there enough already of the ‘Exorcist’ thing?” she followed with an emphatic “It's enough already.”

That is a devastating assessment of the franchise's staying power, although it was not a review of Flanagan's unreleased movie. Burstyn offered no criticism of his direction or Johansson's performance. Her complaint concerned Hollywood's endless appetite for another possession.

The remarks surfaced amid happier discussion of Poetry Says It Better, her self-narrated collection. With an Oscar, a Tony, and two Emmys secured, Burstyn hopes a Grammy could complete her EGOT. Her granddaughter encouraged the effort. Another trophy sounds appealing. Another exorcism, considerably less so.

Mike Flanagan’s ‘The Exorcist’: Plot, Cast, Release Date, and Everything You Need to Know

Yet Hollywood has booked its next appointment with the devil, and Flanagan plans to change the ritual.

The Exorcist: Martyrs reaches theaters March 12, 2027. Flanagan writes and directs, bringing the character-driven dread of The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and Doctor Sleep to Universal's supernatural franchise. Scarlett Johansson plays Julie Miller, a New York detective haunted by the satanic serial-k***** case she closed thirteen years earlier.

A new m***** pulls her into a conspiracy spanning generations of k******, while a sinister threat moves toward her son Max, played by Jacobi Jupe. The family reunion sounds dreadful. Chiwetel Ejiofor portrays a former prison chaplain, Sasha Calle plays Julie's rookie partner, Diane Lane appears as her mother, and Laurence Fishburne joins as a priest. John Leguizamo takes the ominous role of Father Sunday. 

At New York Comic Con, Flanagan promised a terrifying new direction. His film stands apart from Believer's abandoned storyline, combining serial-k***** intrigue with supernatural horror. Early promotional footage hints at church m****** and a grim investigation.

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Does The Exorcist need another chapter, or has Ellen Burstyn made her case? Let us know in the comments.