SUBMITTED BY Scooby

September 5, 2003 — Screenwriter Caleb Carr confirmed to Horror Express that Director Paul Schraeder was no longer helming the Exorcist prequel:

"I can confirm that Paul Schrader's connection with the film has been concluded, by mutual agreement. More details than that, I do not know. As for my reaction and the future of the film, I am heartened by the departure of a director who had apparently taken on the project not because he loved it, but for a paycheck and as a way to get (by his own public statement) "back" into the mainstream of commercial films (his previous solid lock on commercialism apparently having been that landmark of popular culture, CAT PEOPLE). Mr. Schrader has left us with a good amount of useable material which, when cut in with necessary reshoots, should make up a fine film; but in the future, I'd hope that he would have more respect for the work of others than to treat it as a tool with which to gain his private, unconnected, pragmatic goals".