It was announced today that Russell Crowe (Unhinged, Gladiator), and director Julius Avery (Overlord) are teaming up for a new supernatural thriller titled, The Pope’s Exorcist. The movie is based on real-life exorcist to the Vatican Father Gabriele Amorth.

Crowe will play Amorth, who wrote two memoirs, based on his experiences dispelling demons for the Catholic hierarchy. The priest performed over 100,000 exorcisms and lived to tell about them. He died in 2016 at 91 years old.

You might remember Avery as the director of 2018’s Overlord. That movie was about a team of U.S. paratroopers who land behind enemy lines on D-Day. Their mission is to destroy a radio tower, but they find themselves face to face with Nazi experiments hellbent on killing them.

“It’s been a goal of mine to work with Russell,” said Avery in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “To collaborate with him on the amazing Pope’s Exorcist is truly a dream come true.”

This movie is scheduled to begin shooting in September.

The script is being penned by Evan Spiliotopoulos who in the past has written scripts for Disney (Beauty and the Beast, The Huntsman: Winter’s War). However, last year his screenplay The Unholy (PG-13) was a departure from the house of mouse. The movie got tepid reviews, unlike Avery’s Overlord which was critically praised.

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