Netflix has landed the rights to Lee Daniels’ upcoming exorcism movie, which has yet to announce an official title but has confirmed its star-studded cast.
Featuring the likes of Stranger Things’ Caleb McLaughlin, The United States vs. Billie Holiday star Andra Day, Rob Morgan (Daredevil), Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard), Octavia Spencer and Glenn Close, the outing sees Day play a mother who becomes convinced that her children have been demonically possessed.
According to Deadline, the streaming platform’s deal is thought to have set it back upwards of $65 million, which will cover the project’s budget and buyouts.
Daniels will direct, and produce alongside Tucker Tooley and Pam Williams.
The same publication confirmed that the plot of the film will be based on the real-life story of Latoya Ammons, her mother Rosa Campbell and the former’s three youngsters.
In 2011, the family documented a number of strange goings-on at their Indiana-based home; beginning with black flies bizarrely swarming the porch in wintertime, and escalating to visions of shadowy figures around the home, unintentional levitations, and one of Latoya’s sons becoming violent, speaking in growls and walked backwards up a wall.
Following a physician’s visit in April 2012, the police were contacted and the kids ended up being admitted to hospital. Despite growing scepticism from the public about the Ammons’ story, officers, doctors and social workers are said to have witnessed many of the seemingly supernatural incidents, and filed the associated reports.
That said, it has also been recorded that a handful of psychologists interviewed the children and concluded that “the children were acting deceptively and in accordance with their mother’s beliefs”.
The Indianapolis Star covered it closely, while the Department of Child Services investigated the case.
Eventually, the family asked Father Michael Maginot to help. He is believed to have interviewed the Ammons family on April 22, 2012, before performing three exorcisms, two in English and one in Latin – one of which was carried out on Latoya herself.
Source: digitalspy.com