When "Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist," directed by Paul Schrader, opens nationally on May 20, some filmgoers may have the strange feeling they have seen it before. "Dominion" bears a not at all coincidental similarity to Renny Harlin's "Exorcist: The Beginning," a disappointment at the box office last August.
Mr. Schrader's film, the "original" prequel, was shelved by Morgan Creek Productions, an independent film company, in 2003 for being insufficiently scary. The company then hired Mr. Harlin to remake it. Morgan Creek, which had a distribution deal with Warner Brothers at the time, released the Harlin version with a single screening for critics the night before, usually a bad omen.
Perhaps someday a cinemathèque will present both versions in a simultaneous, side-by-side screening. The dueling films could provide fodder for a textual analysis of the auteur theory, with almost identical material yielding wildly different results in the hands of two temperamentally opposed artists: Mr. Schrader, the thoughtful, restrained art-house filmmaker ("Affliction"), and Mr. Harlin, the vigorous director of Hollywood action films ("Cliffhanger").
