News > New Line in The Rite

Written by David Morgan

New Line has bought the rights to Matt Baglio's The Rite, the true story of an American priest who went to exorcism school in Italy. That's right, there's a real exorcism school out there. Baglio, a Rome-based journalist, was granted access to this school as he followed a young priest through the training with a "senior exorcist" at the school affiliated with the Vatican.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Michael Petroni signed on to write the screenplay before the strike deadline of two months ago. The film is expected to contain scenes of exorcism based on the experiences of the priests depicted in the book. They've also given the project a jazzier title: The Rite: The Making of a Modern Day Exorcist. Unfortunately it sounds a bit like a DVD featurette, but hopefully they'll work that out once the strike is over.