Russell Crowe takes on the devil: In “The Pope’s Exorcist” he embodies Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist.

Russell Crowe (58) will soon be driving out demons on behalf of the Pope. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the New Zealander will play Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) in his next film, The Pope’s Exorcist. The priest was the Vatican’s chief exorcist from 1986. He is said to have performed over 100,000 exorcisms in his career.

“The Hollywood Reporter” describes “The Pope’s Exorcist” as a supernatural thriller. Directed by Julius Avery. So far, the Australian can show the gangster thriller “Son of a Gun” with Ewan McGregor (51) and the screenplay for the horror film “Operation: Overlord”. Avery is currently still working on the superhero film “Samaritan” with Sylvester Stallone (75). The film is coming to Amazon Prime Video on August 26 this year.

Gabriele Amorth: The role model for Russell Crowe

The creators of “The Pope’s Exorcist” have secured the rights to two books by Gabriele Amorth. In “An exorcist tells” and “New reports of an exorcist” the clergyman talks about his everyday work. Amorth had also campaigned for his profession in various media. He ran a Facebook page called The Last Exorcist. Although he admitted that psychological causes such as schizophrenia are behind the vast majority of cases, he believed in the real existence of demons and Satan. He once explained that he talks to the devil every day.