Production
Producer James G. Robinson first began development on an untitled prequel to The Exorcist (1973) in 1997, with the first draft of the screenplay penned by William Wisher Jr. In October 1999, Morgan Creek Productions hired Tom McLoughlin to helm the film. With a script finally in place, production was slated to occur the following spring in Africa. McLoughlin departed due to issues with the script. In October 2001, numerous publications reported that John Frankenheimer was on board as director, with a new screenplay revised by Caleb Carr. Liam Neeson was attached to portray the character of Father Lankester Merrin. William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist and screenwriter/producer of its film adaptation, was not expected to take part in the production. After a July 2003 release date was slotted, Frankenheimer was forced to step down from the project due to his declining health and was replaced by Paul Schrader. Gabriel Mann joined the cast in April 2002, while shooting was expected to take place in the spring in the United Kingdom and Spain. The following month, the film was officially titled Exorcist: The Beginning and Stellan Skarsgård and Billy Crawford were added to the cast, the former of which replacing Neeson. Principal photography on Schrader's film began on November 11, 2002 in Morocco with Vittorio Storaro handling cinematography duties. The crew spent six weeks filming in Morocco and then a further two months in Rome. By the time filming had wrapped in February 2003, six writers had contributed to the screenplay and the budget had nearly doubled.
An early cut of Schrader's film that ran at 130 minutes was shown to the studio in early 2003. The cut was widely derided due to a lack of scares and gore. The studio at first opted to re-edit the film to make it scarier, which Schrader opposed. Additional photography was then planned, which according to Schrader only grew "bigger and bigger" as time went on. Schrader attested that he faithfully adapted Carr's screenplay on screen and that the studio went through "buyer's remorse" during production. Later reports indicated that Schrader was first given the option to re-edit the film twice, with neither cut managing to satisfy the studio. Sheldon Kahn was brought in to re-cut the film without Schrader's involvement. Schrader was "livid" and reportedly demanded that Kahn leave. By then, the studio had met with other filmmakers to direct new scenes to make the film scarier. Carr was expected for rewrites, but instead the studio opted to fire Schrader and scrap the film entirely in August 2003. Morgan Creek searched for a new director starting in October. Renny Harlin was among the directors who met with Robinson and suggested to rewrite the script, cast new actors and add in more action. The studio was impressed and hired Harlin. Following revisions were done by Carr, Skip Woods, Alexi Hawley and Harlin. Skarsgård and Julian Wadham were the only cast members retained from the original shoot. In November 2003, special makeup effects artist Gary J. Tunnicliffe confirmed he would be involved with the film. Filming under Harlin's direction began in the winter of 2003 in Rome and concluded after twelve weeks.
In April 2004, Warner Home Video began to consider releasing Schrader's film direct to video. With a budget upward of $90 million, Exorcist: The Beginning opened on August 20, 2004 and underperformed at the box office and was critically panned. Schrader admitted to seeing the film on opening weekend with Blatty and told The Independent "This is really bad. If it stays this bad, I bet there's a chance I can get mine resurrected".
In September 2004, Morgan Creek began discussions with Schrader on possibly giving his version a limited theatrical release in 2005. The studio hired editor Tim Silano to assemble Schrader's version, but Silano insisted that Schrader be brought back to oversee the editing of his own material. Morgan Creek allocated $35,000 and a very short amount of time for Schrader to finish his version. The meager outlay provided by the studio to resume the film's final stage of post-production resulted in a number of compromises. Specifically, Schrader was not given enough money to conduct ADR, to bring cinematographer Vittorio Storaro back to perform the film's color timing (forcing him and Silano to approximate it themselves), nor to commission an original score for the entire film. Instead, the score was developed piecemeal, with fourteen minutes (including a central theme) being composed without payment by Angelo Badalamenti. The final twenty minutes of the film were scored by the American metal band Dog Fashion Disco (the unusual choice stemming from Schrader's son Sam's affection for the group), while the balance of the score - about an hour's worth - was recycled from Trevor Rabin's work for the Harlin version. In addition to contributing compositions, Dog Fashion Disco also "finessed" the score as a whole to give it a unity despite its disparate sources.
In March 2005, after a private screening in New York, the film was titled Paul Schrader's Exorcist: The Original Prequel. Other working titles at that time included Exorcist IV, and Dark Angel. By April, the film was officially titled Dominion.
