slight alterations, can't help it...

People here have correctly observed that a prequel should stand on its own without being an empty-headed, slavish rehash of the original. Having acknowledged that, and speaking purely as a Blatty/original Exorcist fan, and just "in my dreams"... I would slightly tamper with Dominion's opening scenes... to make it just a little more "Blattyesque/Friedkinian" - i.e., to make it "look" and "feel" a bit more like the film to which Dominion intends to lead its audiences:
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OPENING SHOT: Holland: Merrin's study in early afternoon, gray light filtering through snow-frosted windows. The ticking of a clock is heard throughout most of this scene.

As with the museum curator's office scene in The Exorcist, the camera lingers briefly but precisely on the objects in Merrin's study (Merrin is not yet seen). Beneath a Dutch crucifix on the wall, we see a bookcase of scholarly works (anthropology, science, paleontology, philosophy, theology - the camera lingers enough to show the spines of several of MERRIN'S OWN research books and/or monographs, which will be in DUTCH, FRENCH and other European languages, with "Merrin" as the author printed on the spines sufficient to identify him for the audience).

The camera moves around the office, revealing old photos of Merrin as a child with family members, as a teenager, of Merrin as a seminarian along with young other young students, and one in "painted post card sepias" of Merrin in priestly garments. ONE PHOTO, obscured and very hard to make out except for the most perceptive viewers, is a large portrait of Teilhard de Chardin - the same one that lurks in a shadowy corner of Karras' residence when he receives the night call from Sharon to come over to view Regan's stomach stigmata. For those who recognize the portrait, it will provide a very nice resonance between Merrin and Teilhard without being in the least intrusive or obvious.

Then the camera stops behind and slightly to the side of Merrin, who sits in his cassock, at a desk reading a book and taking notes. Again as with the curator's note taking/transcription in The Exorcist, the camera shows a closeup of the book and Merrin's hand as he writes his notes IN DUTCH (no subtitles needed, this is obviously just a sampling of "Merrin the scholar at work.") Merrin is wearing THE SPECTACLES familiar to us from the Friedkin film.

A blast of wind suddenly blows through the study, ruffling Merrin's book. He glances up, surprised, and, placing his spectacles in his cassock pocket, walks to the TIGHTLY SEALED window. His hands feel around for a cause of this strange draft (obviously a reference to the "Pazuzu Wind" from the novel and original movie).

As Merrin stands at the window pondering this strange event, suddenly the clock stops ticking - which of course exactly duplicates itself in his next and final confrontation with the demon in the Friedkin film - thus framing Merrin's exorcistic life between two "dying" clocks.

Merrin moves from the window to the clock in an office suddenly gone completely quiet, except for the weird keening of the Pazuzu Wind - a quiet abruptly interrupted by a shattering, frenetic pounding on his study door.

Merrin moves to the door, opening it on a group of parishioners who beg him to come to the square. A troop of German soldiers has entered the village and they want their priest's help.

Merrin follows the villagers down the hall and out of the rectory, closing the study door behind him. Final shot - brief - shows the empty study with the stopped clock. At last the Pazuzu Wind dies down, but it will SOON appear once again in the street, blowing the hem of Merrin's cassock, just as Schrader has filmed it.

CUT to the villagers and German soldiers in the square as the film continues, again, just as Schrader shot it.
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I tried not to go overboard and overkill with Blatty-Friedkin Exorcist resonances. The ones I did insert do not contradict anything in the rest of Schrader's film - e.g.:

Once we see Merrin wearing spectacles, we know he is "our" Father Merrin - he doesn't need to wear them again later on in the film, and indeed he doesn't - Skarsgaard doesn't wear glasses. Also he puts them in his cassock pocket so when he appears in the square in the next scene, he's already spectacle-less just as Schrader filmed it.

The book collection which represents his scholarship is conspicuously absent any ARCHEOLOGICAL titles. Schrader's film introduces Merrin as having turned to archeology AFTER the War, therefore no specifically archeological books are present in his collection. However, other scholarly and scientific works ARE represented, in order to fill out Merrin as an accomplished intellect even prior to the War.

So if "in my dreams" this little bit of subtle modification were made to the film, I feel that it would be a trifle more successful toward making Schrader's film a true springboard to the Blatty-Friedkin movie. Call it "fan obsessiveness," but like the subject line says, I really can't help it...!