title: The Exorcist

text: Perri's input into the film's opening continued after those credits, as the music abruptly shifts to an ululating male voice and the scene to the archeological dig site in northern Iraq. Friedkin told him he wanted the film to begin with a sunrise, even though he had not filmed one while there on location. The closest shot he had was one filmed at midday, of the sun in an orange sky, with rising heat visible. "I suggested that we create an implied sunrise and that's what's in the film now", Perri says, "a very, very long fade in, like a 30-second fade in of the sun in the sky but in black and white. It very slowly dissolves into color" That image gave the film the sense of beginning it had lacked.


title: The Exorcist

text: The title design was carried over into prerelease marketing for "The Exorcist". Perri designed a poster with the scene where Merrin seems to be confronting the Pazuzu statute entirely in silhouette, an orange sky behind them and the film's title in orange below. It was used as an international teaser poster. "That went out in six languages and they gave me the translation in each language and I set the type in the same style and I fortunately was able to supervise the printing—silk screened rather than lithography—and printed thousands of each and they were distributed around the world", Perri recalls.


title: The Exorcist

text: As a result of the success of "The Exorcist", Perri went on to design opening titles for a number of major films including "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Star Wars" (1977), and "Gangs of New York" (2002). In a 2019 article where Perri discussed how he worked with Friedkin to create the credits, the "Art of the Title" website observed that the disjuncture between Georgetown and Iraq, "two locations with an unclear connection", the title sequence enhances the film by keeping the audience off balance until Merrin arrives at the MacNeils in the last act. "The film asks its audience to hold ideas, timelines, and locations on the other side of the world in mind", the site says. "The importance of these varied narratives of the main characters in the film allows The Exorcist to extend the battle between good and evil beyond a family home in Georgetown, Washington and reveal the demons that lurk all around us."


title: The Exorcist

text: Friedkin rejected Lalo Schifrin's working score. The composer had written six minutes of music for the initial trailer but audiences were reportedly too scared by its combination of sights and sounds. According to Schifrin, Warner executives told Friedkin to instruct him to tone it down with softer music, but he never did; Schifrin disclosed in 2005 that he believes this was in retaliation for an earlier "incident" between the two that he declined to describe as he was already going against legal advice by saying that much. Schifrin denies claims he used his original "Exorcist" music several years later for "The Amityville Horror". According to "The Fear of God: The Making of the Exorcist", on the 25th Anniversary DVD release of the film, Friedkin took the tapes that Schifrin had recorded and threw them away in the studio parking lot.


title: The Exorcist

text: In his "Castle of Frankenstein" interview shortly after the film's release, Friedkin discussed the evolution of the film's music. He said he had hired a composer, whom he did not name, to write a score, "and he did a score all right, and I thought it was terrible, just overstated and dreadful." He decided instead to use the music he had given the composer as inspiration. "In other words, rather than get bad imitation Stravinsky, I might as well have the real thing."


title: The Exorcist

text: Bernard Herrmann, famous for his scores for Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, including the staccato string bursts that accompanied the killings in "Psycho", was offered the opportunity to score the finished film. He was flown from London to New York, where he viewed a rough cut, and declined. He felt the minimal opening credits deprived a composer of the opportunity to establish a musical mood with an overture, and only Welles' "Citizen Kane" had been strong enough as a film to overcome that. In a 1975 interview with "High Fidelity" magazine, Herrmann said that Friedkin objected to his intention to use an organ in the score, saying "I don't want any Catholic music in my picture" and insisted on sharing credit with him for the music.


title: The Exorcist

text: In the soundtrack liner notes for his 1977 film, "Sorcerer", Friedkin said that if he had heard the music of Tangerine Dream earlier, then he would have had them score "The Exorcist". Instead, he used modern classical compositions, including portions of the 1972 Cello Concerto No. 1, of "Polymorphia", and other pieces by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, Five Pieces for Orchestra by Austrian composer Anton Webern as well as some original music by Jack Nitzsche. The music was heard only during scene transitions. The 2000 "Version You've Never Seen" features new music by Steve Boeddeker, as well as brief source music by Les Baxter.


title: The Exorcist

text: What is now considered the movie's theme, the piano-based melody which opens the first part of "Tubular Bells", the 1973 debut album by English progressive rock musician Mike Oldfield, became very popular after the film's release, although Oldfield was not impressed with the way it was used. Friedkin recalled in 2015 that he had wanted something like Brahms' "Lullaby" with "a kind of childhood feel". He had gone to see Calley, who did not understand what the director wanted, but directed him to the nearby music library, where he found Oldfield's record, which Warners was not planning to release. "But I listened to that refrain, and it hooked me, and we won the rights to it" he said. "I think it sold 10 or 20 million records. And it was an accident."


title: The Exorcist

text: There is a total of 17 minutes of music in a film slightly over two hours long. Friedkin was satisfied. "What I "wanted"", he said, "what I think we have in the film, is understated music. The music is just a presence like a cold hand on the back of your neck, rather than assertive." In her ambivalent review of the film, critic Judith Crist praised the film's "sparing and adventurous" use of music.


title: The Exorcist

text: In 1998 a restored and remastered soundtrack was released by Warner (without "Tubular Bells") that included three pieces from Schifrin's rejected score. The pieces are "Music from the unused Trailer", an 11-minute "Suite from the Unused Score", and "Rock Ballad (Unused Theme)". That same year, the Japanese version of the original soundtrack LP did not include the Schifrin pieces but did include the main theme, and the movement titled "Night of the Electric Insects" from George Crumb's string quartet "Black Angels". Waxwork Records released the score in 2017 on two different variations of 180-gram vinyl, "Pazuzu" with clear and black smoke and "Exorcism" that featured blue and black smoke. The record was remastered from the original tapes; it included liner notes from Friedkin with art by Justin Erickson from Phantom City Creative.


title: The Exorcist

text: The Greek song playing on the radio when Father Karras leaves his mother's house is ""Paramythaki mou"" (My Tale), sung by Giannis Kalatzis. Lyricist Lefteris Papadopoulos said that a few years later, when he was in financial difficulties, he asked for some compensation. Part of Hans Werner Henze's 1966 composition "Fantasia for Strings" is played over the closing credits.


title: The Exorcist

text: Principal photography began in August 1972; it was scheduled to last 105 days. Due to production problems and accidents on set, it took over 200 days to wrap. As a result, the film went $2.5 million ($ in modern dollars) over budget, ultimately costing the studio $12 million ($ in modern dollars) to make.


title: The Exorcist

text: Early on, the set in New York for the interiors of the MacNeil house was destroyed by a fire started when a bird flew into a circuit breaker, with the exception of Regan's room, which remained unharmed. Production was delayed for six weeks while it was rebuilt. Later, another set was severely damaged when the sprinkler system activated. A two-week delay resulted when the statue of Pazuzu was shipped to Hong Kong instead of Iraq.


title: The Exorcist

text: Injuries to cast and crew also affected production, and had permanent consequences. Burstyn's back injury during the scene where the possessed Regan throws Chris backwards before the head-spinning, the take used in the film, left her unable to film for two weeks and using crutches for the remainder of the production; the coccyx fracture she suffered has caused her continuing problems since it was inadequately treated at the time; in 2018 she described it as "a permanent companion".


title: The Exorcist

text: Blair also suffered a back injury, in her case a lower spinal fracture, during a take that was also used in the film, after being too loosely strapped to the bed when it was being rocked around.<ref name="Blair /Film story"></ref> She developed scoliosis as a result: "[It] was far more serious than I ever imagined and really affected my health negatively for a long time." She further developed a lifelong aversion to cold due to having to spend so much time in the refrigerated bedroom set wearing only a nightgown and long underwear. A carpenter cut his thumb off and a lighting technician similarly lost a toe in another accident.


title: The Exorcist

text: There were also more deaths among people connected with the film and their family members. Among the cast, MacGowran died a week after completing his scenes as Dennings with the character's death; Maliaros also passed away, like her character, before the film was finished. Deaths among or close to the crew included the night watchman and the operator of the refrigeration system for Regan's room, along with the assistant cameraman's newborn child.


title: The Exorcist

text: Blair's grandfather died during the first week of production, and von Sydow had to return to Sweden after his first day on set shooting the entrance scene after he learned that his brother had died, adding another delay to the production. Miller's son Jason Patric nearly died when, while he and his father were out at the beach, a motorcycle that unexpectedly appeared struck him, leaving him in critical condition and requiring weeks in intensive care to heal from the injuries. Several years after the film's release, Paul Bateson, the radiological technician in the angiography scene, was convicted of murder in the death of journalist Addison Verrill; in 2015 Hatra, the World Heritage Site where the prologue had been shot, was demolished by ISIL militants.


title: The Exorcist

text: Friedkin believed that there might have been some supernatural interference with the film. "I'm not a convert to the occult", he told the horror-film magazine, "Castle of Frankenstein", "but after all I've seen on this film, I definitely believe in demonic possession ... We were plagued by strange and sinister things from the beginning." He said some striking visuals in the film had not been intended and could not be explained.


title: The Exorcist

text: Vercourtere, the special effects supervisor, also felt uncomfortable working on the film. "There was definitely a feeling something [bad] could happen," he recalled. "I felt I was playing around with something I shouldn't be playing around with." Concern among the production was significant enough that Friedkin asked Father Thomas Bermingham, the film's technical advisor (who also played Georgetown's president in the film), to perform an exorcism on the set. Bermingham instead blessed the cast and crew, believing that an actual exorcism would only make the cast more anxious.


title: The Exorcist

text: British film historian Sarah Crowther believes stories of the curse were partly disseminated by Warner's marketing department, which she believes was purposely courting controversy by releasing the film just after Christmas. "[They] spread speculation of the curse prior to release. It was an extremely hot topic in global media when it hit cinemas", she told inews.com in 2018, likening the curse to the elaborate marketing gimmicks employed by producer William Castle to stimulate viewer interest in his horror films during the 1960s. Crowther believes most of the aspects of the curse are really just the result of Friedkin's driving, relentless production over a prolonged period, which fatigued many members of the cast and crew.


title: The Exorcist

text: In 2000, Blatty joked that "There is no "Exorcist" curse. "I" am "The Exorcist" curse!" when asked if the death of Blair's pet mouse was possibly due to the alleged curse.


title: The Exorcist

text: Warners scheduled "The Exorcist" for release the day after Christmas in 1973. Originally it had been scheduled for an earlier release, but that was postponed due to postproduction delays. Friedkin was, even years later, angry about this choice of release date, believing that it hurt the film at the box office. He had wanted a release "before" the holiday, or on it, as is more common at the time of year; it has been speculated that Warners wanted to avoid any controversy that might have come from releasing a film about demonic possession before a major religious holiday. Friedkin supposedly had seen what Paramount had done to make "The Godfather", which had had similar issues, a runaway success a year and a half before and had wanted Warners to emulate it with a more preferable release date, such as March, as that film had had.


title: The Exorcist

text: The post-holiday release served to help "The Exorcist" sell tickets, as most moviegoers had all or most of the week off to go see it. It is the second all-time highest-grossing Christmas week release after 1997's "Titanic". It has also outgrossed "The Godfather". Ultimately it played on screens for 105 weeks, or just over two years.


title: The Exorcist

text: In 1979, the film was re-released theatrically and was converted to 70mm, with its original 1.75:1 aspect ratio expanded to 2.20:1 to use all the available screen width that 70mm offers. The sound was remixed to six-channel Dolby Stereo, later used on most home releases.


title: The Exorcist

text: A new edition labeled "The Version You've Never Seen" (later re-labeled "Extended Director's Cut") was released in theaters in September 2000, with additions and changes.


title: The Exorcist

text: The network TV version originally broadcast on CBS in 1980 was edited by Friedkin, who filmed a shot of the Virgin Mary statue crying blood to replace the desecrated statue image. Friedkin himself delivered the demon's new, censored dialogue because he was unwilling to work with McCambridge again. The lines "Your mother sucks cocks in hell, Karras, you faithless slime!" and "Shove it up your ass, you faggot!" were redubbed as "Your mother still rots in hell" and "Shut your face, you faggot". Several of Chris' lines were redubbed by Burstyn, replacing "Jesus Christ" with "Judas Priest" and omitting the expletive "fuck". Moments in which Regan masturbates with a crucifix and forces her mother's head into her crotch are removed, along with most of the character's profanity. There is also a brief alternative shot shortly after Merrin arrives at the MacNeil house of Regan's face morphing into the demon's white visage (theatrical versions show only the beginning of the transformation). In some network versions Regan is not masturbating but having another fit.


title: The Exorcist

text: In both the TV-PG and TV-14 rated network edits, the image of the obscenely defiled statue of the Virgin Mary is intact, appearing on-screen for several more seconds in the TV-14 version. In the original TV airings, the desecrated statue was replaced by an alternative version showing the face smashed in, but no other defilement. Edits may vary between networks; non-premium cable networks usually show only edited/censored versions of the film.


title: The Exorcist

text: A limited 50,000-copy special edition box set was released in 1998 for the film's 25th anniversary. There are two versions: one for VHS released in November, and a DVD released a month later. Both have identical material. A 30th anniversary edition was released on DVD by Warner Home Video in August 2003.


title: The Exorcist

text: The 25th Anniversary Special Edition DVD includes the original ending (not used in the theatrical release) as a special feature: as Father Dyer walks away from the MacNeil residence, he is approached by Lt. Kinderman. They talk briefly about Regan and the events that took place and then Kinderman invites Dyer to the movies to see "Wuthering Heights". Kinderman quotes "Casablanca", telling Dyer, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".


title: The Exorcist

text: Blatty was pleased that the scene was restored. The night before the scene was shot, he and Friedkin had worked very hard on blocking it, to make sure it would be clear to the audience that the film ended on an upbeat moment. "My theory over the years has been that at that point in the movie, most of the audience is a little out of it" he said two years later. "They're really not seeing what's happening there, and, of course, the film lost its original ending and instead ended with Father Dyer looking down the steps ... [which] gives an audience an emotional cue about how they're "supposed" to feel." Overall, he said, the 25th anniversary cut is "the version that I first saw on the moviola in the editing room all those years ago, and it's the way it ought to be seen."


title: The Exorcist

text: The Special Edition DVD contains "The Fear of God", a 75-minute documentary on the making of the film, with screen tests and additional deleted scenes.


title: The Exorcist

text: The extended edition labeled "The Version You've Never Seen" (released theatrically in 2000) was released on DVD in 2001. It was re-released on DVD (and Blu-ray) with slight alterations under the new label "Extended Director's Cut" in 2010.


title: The Exorcist

text: In a 2008 "DVD Review" interview, Friedkin said he was scheduled to begin work on "The Exorcist" Blu-ray in 2008. This edition featured a new restoration, including both the 1973 theatrical version and the 2000 "Version You've Never Seen" (re-labeled as "Extended Director's Cut"). It was released two years later. A 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray was released in 2013, containing both cuts of the film and many of the previously released bonus features in addition to two featurettes about Blatty.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology", a box set, was released on DVD in 2006, and on Blu-ray in 2014. This collection includes the original theatrical release version of "The Exorcist", the extended version (labelled "The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen" on the DVD release and "The Exorcist: Extended Director's Cut" on the Blu-ray release), the sequels "" and "The Exorcist III", and the prequels "" and "".


title: The Exorcist

text: , "The Exorcist" is available for streaming to subscribers of FuboTV, HBO Max and Vudu. It can be bought or rented from Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Philo and YouTube.


title: The Exorcist

text: Since it was a horror film that had gone well over budget and did not have any major stars in the lead roles, Warner did not have high expectations for "The Exorcist". It did not preview the film for critics and booked its initial release for only 30 screens in 24 theaters, mostly in 21 large cities and their metropolitan areas. The film grossed $1.9 million ($ in modern dollars) in its first week, setting house records in each theater, with an average of $70,000, equivalent to $300,000 at modern ticket prices.


title: The Exorcist

text: Within its first month it had grossed $7.4 million nationwide, ($ in modern dollars) by which time Warners' executives expected it to easily surpass "My Fair Lady"s $34 million take to become the studio's most financially successful film. The huge crowds attracted to the film forced the studio to expand it into wide release very quickly, to 366 screens. At the time that releasing strategy had rarely been used for anything but exploitation films. Many of the theaters in large cities were not located near downtowns, where Warners had booked "Magnum Force", the "Dirty Harry" sequel, before planning the release of "The Exorcist". In February it accounted for 15 percent of all Warners' grosses in key markets.


title: The Exorcist

text: None of the theaters were in Black neighborhoods such as South Central Los Angeles since the studio did not expect that audience to take much interest in the film, which had no Black characters. But after the theater in predominantly white Westwood that had shown the film was overwhelmed with moviegoers from South Central, it was quickly booked into theaters in that neighborhood. Black American enthusiasm for "The Exorcist" has been credited with ending mainstream studio support for blaxploitation movies, since Hollywood realized that Black audiences would flock to films that did not have content specifically geared to them.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The New York Times" took notice that the audience lined up to see the film was between one-quarter and one-third Black at one theater on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a mostly white neighborhood of the city, showing the film in late January. "A lot of blacks relate to voodoo and witchcraft and that kind of devil stuff," one Black patron said, when asked why so many Black people were sufficiently attracted to the film to go to such lengths to see it. "Many still believe in black magic, especially those from Haiti and the Deep South."


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist" earned $66.3 million ($ in modern dollars) in distributors' rentals during its theatrical release in 1974 in the United States and Canada, becoming the second most popular film of that year (trailing "The Sting" which earned $68.5 million) and Warners' highest-grossing film of all time. The high returns were made possible by the use of four-wall distribution, where the contract provides that the studio rents the theater from the owner and thus keeps all the ticket revenue, in the initial run. It was the first time a major studio had used that practice. Warners also used some practices that had made "The Godfather" successful for Paramount the year before, such as making theaters commit to showing the film for at least 24 weeks.


title: The Exorcist

text: Overseas, the film earned rentals of $46 million for a worldwide total of $112.3 million ($ in modern dollars). It became the highest-grossing film in Japan with rentals of over $8.2 million in its first 11 weeks. After several reissues, the film has grossed $232.6 million in the United States and Canada, which when adjusted for inflation, makes it the ninth highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada and the top-grossing R-rated film of all time. , it has grossed $441 million worldwide, or $1.8 billion adjusted for inflation by 2014.


title: The Exorcist

text: In "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls", journalist and film historian Peter Biskind wrote about Warner's reaction to the success of the film. Executives were happy, but also nervous, since the huge earnings meant that the more free-wheeling and experimental parts of what the studio had done would become limited in favor of a focus on finding profitable film ideas and projects.


title: The Exorcist

text: Stanley Kauffmann, in "The New Republic", wrote, "This is the scariest film I've seen in years—the "only" scary film I've seen in years ... If you want to be shaken—and I found out, while the picture was going, that that's what I wanted—then "The Exorcist" will scare the hell out of you". Arthur D. Murphy of "Variety" noted that it was "an expert telling of a supernatural horror story  ... The climactic sequences assault the senses and the intellect with pure cinematic terror". In the horror-film magazine "Castle of Frankenstein", Joe Dante, later director of "Piranha" and "The Howling", called it "an amazing film, and one destined to become at the very least a horror classic. [It] will be profoundly disturbing to all audiences, especially the more sensitive and those who tend to 'live' the movies they see ... Suffice it to say, there has never been anything like this on the screen before".


title: The Exorcist

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a complete four-star review, praising the actors (particularly Burstyn) and the convincing special effects, but at the end of the review wrote: "I am not sure exactly what reasons people will have for seeing this movie; surely enjoyment won't be one, because what we get here aren't the delicious chills of a Vincent Price thriller, but raw and painful experience. Are people so numb they need movies of this intensity in order to feel anything at all?" Ebert, while praising the film, believed the special effects to be unusually graphic. He wrote: "That it received an R rating and not the X is stupefying".


title: The Exorcist

text: In the middle of the range of critical response was Judith Crist. Her review in "New York" called the film "half-successful". She praised Friedkin's direction, its "to-the-point performances" and the special effects and makeup. But she felt that Blatty, in adapting his novel, had taken out the things that made the reader connect with the characters, and was perhaps limited by the fact that the film could not leave things to the imagination the way the book had.


title: The Exorcist

text: Kael called the film "shallowness that asks to be taken seriously" saying its main problem was being too faithful to the novel as Blatty had intended it. Vincent Canby, writing in "The New York Times", dismissed "The Exorcist" as "a chunk of elegant occultist claptrap ... a practically impossible film to sit through ... [e]stablish[ing] a new low for grotesque special effects." Andrew Sarris of "The Village Voice" complained that "Friedkin's biggest weakness is his inability to provide enough visual information about his characters ... Whole passages of the movie's exposition were one long buzz of small talk and name droppings ... "The Exorcist" succeeds on one level as an effectively excruciating entertainment, but on another, deeper level it is a thoroughly evil film". Writing in "Rolling Stone", Jon Landau felt the film was "nothing more than a religious porn film, the gaudiest piece of shlock this side of Cecil B. DeMille (minus that gentleman's wit and ability to tell a story)." "Film Quarterly"s Michael Dempsey called "The Exorcist" "the trash bombshell of 1973, the aesthetic equivalent of being run over by a truck ... a gloating, ugly exploitation picture." The "San Francisco Bay Guardian"s reviewer called it "quite simply the dumbest, most insultingly anti-intellectual movie I have ever come across".


title: The Exorcist

text: At the only sneak preview held before release, audience members screamed and ran out of the theater during the showing. When it was over, Calley and the other Warners executives, instead of leaving without comment as studio executives usually do after those events, remained in their seats, stunned. "What in the fuck did we just see?" Calley asked. They believed the film was brilliant, but did not know how to market it, and decided on the limited early release after Christmas, with a trade screening on December 21. Burstyn recalled watching television the morning the film opened of viewers in Montreal lining up at 4 a.m. in frigid temperatures. "I thought, how can a movie have that kind of impact before it even opens? I just couldn't believe it."


title: The Exorcist

text: Despite its mixed reviews and the controversies over its content and viewer reaction, "The Exorcist" was a runaway hit. In New York City, where its initial run was limited to a few theaters, patrons endured cold as severe as sometimes with rain and sleet, waiting for hours in long lines during what is normally a slow time of year for the movies to buy tickets, many not for the first time. The crowds gathered outside theaters sometimes rioted, and police were called in to quell disturbances in not only New York but Kansas City.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The New York Times" asked some of those in line what drew them there. Those who had read the novel accounted for about a third; they wanted to see if the film could realistically depict some of the scenes in the book. Others said: "We're here because we're nuts and because we wanted to be part of the madness". A repeat viewer told the newspaper that it was the best horror film he had seen in decades, "much better than "Psycho". You feel contaminated when you leave the theater. There's something that is impossible to erase". Many made a point of saying that they had either never waited in line that long for a movie before, or not in a long time. "It makes the movie better," William Hurt, then a drama student at Juilliard, said of the experience. "The more you pay for something, the more it's worth."


title: The Exorcist

text: Reports of strong audience reactions were widespread. Many viewers fainted; a woman in London, when the film opened there, reportedly fainted before the film even began. A woman in New York was said to have miscarried during a showing. One man at another showing lasted only 20 minutes before he had to be carried out on a stretcher.


title: The Exorcist

text: Nausea was the most commonly reported reaction. "We have a plumber practically living here now", said the manager of Toronto's University Theater on Bloor Street, at the time selling its 1,440 seats out four times a day. "The smell in the bathrooms is awful. People are rushing in and they're missing the toilet seat by inches." Viewers seemed to be particularly disturbed by the crucifix scenes; the theater reported depleting its supply of smelling salts. Many patrons left before the end or waited for viewing companions in the lobby; the smell of marijuana smoke was also common although the police stationed at the theater reported no arrests. A reviewer for "Cinefantastique" said that there was so much vomit in the bathroom at the showing he attended that it was impossible to reach the sinks. Some theaters have been said to have provided ""Exorcist" barf bags"; while there are no contemporary reports of any even providing regular sickness bags, "Mad" magazine depicted one on the cover of its October 1974 issue, which contained a parody of the film.


title: The Exorcist

text: Other theaters arranged for ambulances to be on call; in Toronto the University said it had once required four in one night. Some patrons had to be helped after showings to leave the places they had hidden. Despite its lack of any supernatural content, many audience members found the angiography, where blood spurts from the tube inserted into Regan's neck, to be the film's most unsettling scene (Blatty said he only watched it once, while the film was being edited, and avoided it on every other viewing). Friedkin speculates that it is easier to empathize with Regan in that scene, as compared to what she suffers while possessed later in the film.


title: The Exorcist

text: Some Catholic viewers experienced spiritual crises as a result of seeing the film. Many priests reported being called to minister to parishioners, some of whom had lapsed in their faith, who had been distraught by the film. A man in Denver walked out of a showing into the nearby Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception half-naked and so disturbed that it took two priests, several attendants and the police to get him into it. A teenage girl in New Jersey stayed up all night with her parents saying the Rosary with her parents after seeing the film but still needed to reassured by a priest before she could sleep; even some priests themselves had similar issues. Many parishes reported callers who believed that they or a loved one was possessed and inquiring about how to arrange an exorcism. The Rev. Richard Woods, a professor at Loyola of Chicago, said most of the calls he got were from lapsed Catholics for whom the film resurfaced their religious education prior to Vatican II. "It stirs up memories of all those descriptions of hell that you got from nuns," he said.


title: The Exorcist

text: In 1975, "The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease" published a paper by a psychiatrist documenting four cases of what he called "cinematic neurosis" triggered by viewing the film. In all he believed the neurosis was already present and merely triggered by viewing scenes in the film, particularly those depicting Regan's possession. He recommended that treating physicians view the movie with their patient to help him or her identify the sources of their trauma.


title: The Exorcist

text: Other causes were suggested outside the psychiatric context. One writer at "Castle of Frankenstein" took note of Friedkin's pride in the movie's sound, which theaters played at maximum volume, and wondered if some of the low frequencies had induced or amplified feelings of dread or uneasiness in patrons. Another writer there blamed the reactions on the mainstream audience's general unfamiliarity with horror cinema and its conventions. "We have all no doubt heard of people who stood in line for four hours to see this movie, then threw up in mid-film and walked out," he wrote. "I can't say for sure, but my guess is that these people hadn't gone to see a monster movie since 1935."


title: The Exorcist

text: ""The Exorcist" ... was one of the rare horror movies that became part of the national conversation", wrote Zinoman almost 40 years later: "It was a movie you needed to have an opinion about". Three separate production histories were published. Journalists complained that coverage of the film and its controversies was distracting the public from the ongoing Watergate scandal. Much of the coverage focused on the audience which, in the words of film historian William Paul, "had become a spectacle equal to the film". Paul cited an Associated Press cartoon in which a couple trying to purchase tickets to the film was told that while the film itself is sold out, "we're selling tickets to the lobby to watch the audience." He did not think any other film's audience has received as much coverage as "The Exorcist"s.


title: The Exorcist

text: "One of the best things that could happen is if the Pope denounces it", Friedkin told an interviewer the month after "The Exorcist" was released. Some of the film's content, such as the crucifix scene, involved acts and utterances that were specifically sacrilegious from a Catholic perspective. Officially the Church, whose influence over the content of films had declined following the demise of the Hays Office and the associated Production Code a few years earlier, had bemoaned Warners' decision to release it immediately following Christmas. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting, through its publication the "Catholic Film Newsletter" rated the film A-IV, suitable for adults only with reservations, and gave it a generally negative review that faulted the film for suggesting exorcisms were common and possibly encouraging belief in the occult and Satanism.


title: The Exorcist

text: Individual priests familiar with the underlying theology also faulted the film. A priest who, like Karras, was a Jesuit and psychiatrist at Georgetown said that while he believed in the Devil "there is no shred of evidence from the Bible that he can possess an individual." Woods, the Loyola of Chicago professor, who had written a book about the Devil, told "The New York Times" that Karras and Merrin were incompetent exorcists. "They departed from the ritual in the most stupid and reckless manner," he said. "They tried to fight the Demon hand to hand instead of relying on the power of God." Eugene Kennedy, another Loyola priest and psychologist, described the film's view of the battle of good and evil as "immature ... Being a Christian and a mature person means coming to terms with our own capacity for evil, not projecting it on an outside force that possesses us."


title: The Exorcist

text: Critics of the movie's depiction of Catholicism were not limited to the Church. "Surely it is the religious people who should be most offended by this movie", wrote Kael, incredulous that Georgetown and several priests facilitated the production:


title: The Exorcist

text: Kael had nonetheless also described "The Exorcist" as "the biggest recruiting poster the Catholic Church has had since the sunnier days of "Going My Way" and "The Bells of St. Mary's"" since the film "says that [it] is the true faith, feared by the Devil, and that its rituals can exorcise demons." A later historian has found that the Church was not as critical of the film as media coverage at the time suggested. Privately it considered the film to be faith-affirming. In 2008, Colleen McDannell, editor of "Catholics In The Movies", wrote that ""The Exorcist" is a horror movie that believes in its villain and, even worse, recruits its villain as a witness to Catholic truth."


title: The Exorcist

text: In February 1974, the Jesuit magazine "America" ran several commentaries and responses by priests to the film, some of which reiterated criticisms already made. The editors allowed Blatty to publish a response later that month. He praised some of the commentators' points, "[b]ut I am truly dismayed at the misconceptions held, not only by critics, but also defenders of the novel and film. And when I see that they are Jesuits, whom I thanked on the acknowledgement page of my novel for 'teaching me to think,' I can only conclude that the fault must be mine, and that what I thought obvious, was not."


title: The Exorcist

text: The changes to the film's ending from the novel, Blatty agreed, might have made it harder to perceive that "the mystery of goodness" was the theme of the work, since it appeared to many viewers, including some of those who had written in the magazine, that the film ended with the demon triumphant through the deaths of the priests even if it had been successfully exorcised from Regan. The ending of the novel made this theme clearer, but even in the film he saw Karras's suicide as a sacrificial act of love that reaffirmed his faith in death. Blatty also corrected the misapprehension, common at the time, that the spirit possessing Regan was Satan, noting that it was explicitly named as Pazuzu in the novel, and implied strongly in the film to be him. "True, Regan tells Fr. Karras, 'And I'm the devil.'" he conceded. "But what constrains us to believe her? Believe that and you perforce must believe everything the demon has to say, including the accusation that Fr. Merrin is a homosexual." Lastly he responded to Woods' criticism of the absence of temptation as a theme in the film by saying that he chose not to explore that because not only did he see that focus as "naive, mistaken and an excuse for evasion of confrontation with personal guilt" but that he instead saw the Devil's greatest weapon against humanity to be "the inducement of despair."


title: The Exorcist

text: American Protestant groups also took note of the "Exorcist" phenomenon and its religious implications. At first their response was negative. Evangelist Billy Graham told the "National Enquirer" that he was afraid to watch it, saying that "the Devil is in every frame of that film", a remark later characterized as Graham believing the print itself to be possessed. He called it "spiritual pornography, pandering to man's innate superstition."


title: The Exorcist

text: The Rev. Lester Kinsolving, an Episcopal priest who wrote a widely syndicated newspaper column on religion, chastised the Catholic Church for granting its approval, saying incorrectly that it had given the film an A-III rating only because its heroes were priests. "The Christian Century", the leading voice of mainline Protestantism, likewise denounced the film as "hardcore pornography [that to Protestants offers] a completely impossible solution" to evil. Protestant groups around the country picketed the film and offered support to those who might be disturbed by it, distributing leaflets with church contact information to filmgoers waiting in line.


title: The Exorcist

text: The Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) ratings board had been established several years before to replace the Motion Picture Production Code after it expired in 1968. It had already been criticized for its indirect censorship—as many as a third of the films submitted to it had had to be recut after being rated X, meaning no minors could be admitted. Since many theaters would not show such films, and newspapers would not run ads for them, the X rating greatly limited a non-pornographic film's commercial prospects.


title: The Exorcist

text: While Friedkin wanted more blood and gore in "The Exorcist" than had been in any Hollywood film previously, he also needed the film to have an R rating (children admitted only with an adult) to reach a large audience. He believes that part of the reason for Warners' decision to open the film in limited release was the studio's certainty that the film would be rated X, severely attenuating its commercial prospects. Before release, Aaron Stern, the head of the MPAA ratings board, decided to watch the film himself before the rest of the board did. He then called Friedkin and said that since "The Exorcist" was "an important film", he would allow it to receive an R rating without any cuts.


title: The Exorcist

text: Some critics, both anticipating and reacting to reports of the film's effect on children who might be or had been taken to see it, questioned the R rating. While he had praised the film, Roy Meacham, a critic for Metromedia television stations based in Washington, D.C., wrote in "The New York Times" in February 1974 that he had strongly cautioned that children should not be allowed to see it even with an adult, a warning his station repeated for several days. Nevertheless, some had, and he had heard of one girl being taken from the theater in an ambulance.


title: The Exorcist

text: In Washington, the film drew strong interest as well since it was a rare film set in the area that did not involve government activity. The children Meacham saw leaving showings, he recalled, "were drained and drawn afterward; their eyes had a look I had never seen before". He suggested that the ratings board had somehow yielded to pressure from Warner not to give the film an X rating, and was skeptical of MPAA head Jack Valenti's claims that since the film had no sex or nudity, it could receive an R. After a week in Washington's theaters, Meacham recalled, authorities cited the crucifix scene to invoke a local ordinance that forbid minors from seeing any scenes with sexual content even where the actors were fully clothed; police warned theaters that staff would be arrested if "any" minors were admitted to see "The Exorcist".


title: The Exorcist

text: "The review board [has] surrendered all right to the claim that it provides moral and ethical leadership to the movie industry", Meacham wrote. He feared that, as a result, communities across the country would feel it necessary to pass their own, perhaps more restrictive, laws regarding the content of movies that could be shown in their jurisdictions: "For if the movie industry cannot provide safeguards for minors, authorities will have to." In "The New Yorker", Kael echoed his insinuations that the board had yielded to studio pressure in rating the film R: "If "The Exorcist" had cost under a million or been made abroad, it would almost certainly be an X film. But when a movie is as expensive as this one, the [board] doesn't dare give it an X".


title: The Exorcist

text: Two communities, Boston and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, attempted to prevent the film from being shown outright in their jurisdictions. A court in the former city blocked the ban, saying the film did not meet the U.S. Supreme Court's standard of obscenity. Nonetheless, in Boston the authorities told theaters they could not admit any minors despite the R rating. In Mississippi, the theater chain showing the movie was convicted at trial, but the state's Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 1976, finding that the state's obscenity statute was too vague to be enforceable in the wake of the Supreme Court's 1972 "Miller v. California" decision which laid down a new standard for obscenity.


title: The Exorcist

text: There was also concern that theaters were not strictly enforcing the R rating, or even enforcing it at all, allowing unaccompanied minors to view the film. "Times" critic Lawrence Van Gelder reported that a 16-year-old girl in California said that not only was she sold a ticket to see the film unaccompanied, others who seemed even younger were able to do so as well. On the other hand, another "Times" writer, Judy Lee Klemesrud, said she saw no unaccompanied minors, and indeed very few minors, when she went to see the film in Manhattan. Nevertheless, "I think that if a movie ever deserved an X rating simply because it would keep the kids out of the theater, it is "The Exorcist"".


title: The Exorcist

text: In 1974, Stern's tenure as chairman of the MPAA ratings board ended. His replacement, Richard Heffner, asked during the interview process about films with controversial ratings, including "The Exorcist", said: "How could anything be worse than this? And it got an R?" After he took over as head, he would spearhead efforts to be more aggressive with the X rating, especially over violence in films.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist" was released in London in March 1974. The film drew protests around Britain from the Nationwide Festival of Light (NFL), a Christian public action group concerned with the influence of media on society, and especially on the young. Members of local clergy and concerned citizens handed out leaflets to those queuing to see the film, offering spiritual support afterwards to those who asked for it. A letter-writing campaign to local councils by the NFL led many to screen "The Exorcist" before permitting it to be shown in their districts. It was thus banned in some areas, such as Dinefwr Borough and Ceredigion in Wales.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist" was available on home video from 1981 in the UK. After the passage of the Video Recordings Act 1984, the film was submitted to the British Board of Film Classification for a home video certificate. James Ferman, the board's director, vetoed the decision to grant it over a majority vote. He believed that, even with a proposed 18 certificate, the film's notoriety would entice underage viewers to seek it out. As a result, all video copies of "The Exorcist" were withdrawn in the UK in 1988 and could not be purchased for 11 years.


title: The Exorcist

text: Following a successful 1998 theatrical re-release, the film was submitted for home video release again in 1999. It was passed uncut with an 18 certificate, signifying a relaxation of the censorship rules for home video in the UK, in part due to Ferman's departure. Channel 4 showed "The Exorcist" on broadcast television in the UK for the first time in 2001.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist" set box office records that stood for many years. For almost half a century, until the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King's "It", it was the top-grossing R-rated horror film. In 1999, "The Sixth Sense" finally bested "The Exorcist" as the highest-grossing supernatural horror film; it remains in third place after "It" claimed that title as well. On both charts "The Exorcist", along with "The Blair Witch Project", are the only 20th-century releases in the top 10.


title: The Exorcist

text: Since its release, "The Exorcist"s critical reputation has grown considerably. According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 84% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 84 reviews, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The site's critics consensus states: ""The Exorcist" rides its supernatural theme to magical effect, with remarkable special effects and an eerie atmosphere, resulting in one of the scariest films of all time". At Metacritic, which assigns and normalizes scores of critic reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". "Chicago Tribune" film critic Gene Siskel placed it in the top five films released that year. BBC film critic Mark Kermode believes the film to be the best film ever made.


title: The Exorcist

text: Director Martin Scorsese placed "The Exorcist" on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time. Other filmmakers, including Stanley Kubrick, Robert Eggers, Alex Proyas and David Fincher also have cited "The Exorcist" as one of their favorite films. The musician Elton John listed it in his five favorite films of all time. In 2008, the film was selected by "Empire" as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies Ever Made". It was also placed on a similar list of a thousand films by "The New York Times". John Carpenter listed "The Exorcist" as one of his top eight scariest horror classics and listed the film as an influence in his 1980 supernatural horror film "The Fog".


title: The Exorcist

text: When the film was re-released theatrically in 2000 as "The Version You've Never Seen", some critics reconsidered whether it was still capable of affecting contemporary audiences, since it had been so widely imitated and emulated by other films since then. The "Hartford Courant"s Malcolm Johnson described it as a "somewhat creaky antique [that] ... in some ways, feels a little old hat in 2000." Some scenes, such as Ritalin being proposed as a treatment for Regan, provoked laughter from modern audiences that had not been intended in 1973. But the film's performances were still effective, and the longer version made the medical professionals seem like "witch doctors".


title: The Exorcist

text: But the "Tribune" found it "even better than it was in 1973 ... it actually seems a deeper movie now." Friedkin, who had seemed an odd choice to direct at the time, now seemed to have been the best. "[He] made the story real—and more terrifying", critic Michael Wilmington wrote. "[He] knows how to make the improbable real, how to convey a convincing atmosphere of modern chaos and dread."


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist"s surprising commercial success has evoked critical ponderings over what sort of deeper social resonance the film tapped into. Many of those critics have mentioned the anxiety of the American population over developments at the time, just after the cultural, political and social upheavals of the late 1960s. ""The Exorcist" communicates an image of a United States in an unstable state of change that can no longer avoid its real and historical systemic evils", writes Amy Chambers.


title: The Exorcist

text: Stephen King, whose horror novels would sell well in the wake of the film and generate film adaptations of their own (one of which, the 2017 version of "It", would eventually dethrone "The Exorcist" as the all-time highest-grossing R-rated horror film), calls "The Exorcist" "a social horror film if there ever was one" in his 1983 treatise on the genre, "Danse Macabre". He sees the possessed Regan symbolizing for middle-aged viewers the outspoken, often profane youth protesting the Vietnam War and other social injustices, and speculates that the absence of that phenomenon from West Germany during that era may explain why the film did not perform as well there as it did in other countries (whereas the later "Dawn of the Dead" was extremely successful, coming as it did after an era characterized by youth-led terrorist activity such as Baader-Meinhof Gang. Danny Peary likewise notes the symbolic and real fragmentation throughout the film, from the dig-site workers breaking up rocks in the first scene to Chris's fraught relationship with her ex-husband and Karras's drift from his faith: "With the world in such disorder, the Devil can make a dramatic entrance."


title: The Exorcist

text: More specifically, at the time of the film's release, the Watergate scandal was growing more serious, implicating President Richard Nixon and the subject of regular daily news coverage. "Maybe, between that and Vietnam, people were newly awake to a certain kind of pervading societal rot, something that the spectacle of "The Exorcist" might've mirrored", wrote Tom Breihan for "The A.V. Club" in 2019. In a "Christian Century" article a year after the film's release, during which time Nixon had resigned, theologian Carl Raschke connected the two, calling them "psychodramas of the American soul" resulting from "the cynical mood of our age [arising] by default from the wreck of traditional religious as well as social values."


title: The Exorcist

text: One other early 1970s challenge to a weakened social order has gotten considerable attention in discussions of "The Exorcist": feminism. The U.S. women's liberation movement had enjoyed some early gains in legislatures and courts, and commentators have seen the film, in which a single working mother and her apparently uncontrollable daughter are ultimately rescued by patriarchal authority, as a reaction against feminism specifically. Peter Biskind, in "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls", his history of the 1970s New Hollywood, describes the film as "a male nightmare of female puberty. Emergent female sexuality is equated with demonic possession." For the male authority figures in "The Exorcist", whether priests or physicians, Regan must be restored to her innocence through abusive and violent means if necessary, the aspect of the film that he notes led John Boorman to decline the directing job.


title: The Exorcist

text: For Breihan, this was because the film itself was reactionary: ""The Exorcist" seems like a transgressive work of art, but it's built on reverence of tradition. It has trust in institutions" he writes. "[It] almost sneers at the politics of the ’60s and at the way Hollywood embraced them." In the film's most overtly political scenes, those showing the shooting of the film Chris is making, she dismisses its take on student protest as "the Walt Disney version of the Ho Chi Minh story". In the only scene she is shown shooting, her character, a faculty member at the fictional college, grabs a megaphone and counsels a group of protesters against taking over the building and shutting down classes, telling them, "if you want change, you have to work within the system."


title: The Exorcist

text: Like Biskind, many feminist critics have taken particular note of the film's focus on the female body as the site of horror in the film. "When her body changes, Regan becomes "someone else"; someone sexual, whose desire is a dark visitor, hollowing her out and corrupting her from within" writes Jude Ellison Doyle in "Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy and the Fear of Female Power". "To become a woman is to become the worst thing on Earth, the enemy of all that is pure or holy."


title: The Exorcist

text: Australian film studies professor Barbara Creed, in her seminal 1993 work "The Monstrous-Feminine", which inaugurated psychoanalytic feminist film theory, counters the prevailing feminist take on "The Exorcist" by insisting that Pazuzu is female and thus the possession of Regan is itself a feminist act, exposing "the inability of the male order to control the woman whose perversity is expressed through her rebellious body", as she navigates an incestuous desire for her mother. Ilkka Mäyrä argues that this reading "to my mind, almost completely ignores the most important aspects of the particular conflicts that empower the demonic in this work", since it seems to be based largely on a female actress voicing the demon, ignores the novel entirely as well as indications of its maleness in the film, such as the clearly phallic Pazuzu figure shown both in Iraq and Regan's bedroom, along with images of ailing masculinity such as Merrin's frailty. "The demonic in "The Exorcist" can not be reduced to the conflict between sexes, even if the female body and sexuality (both male and female) play special roles in it."


title: The Exorcist

text: University of Toronto professor S. Trimble writes that the film tapped into "white American fears of nightmare futures" that could be brought about by the women's liberation, gay liberation and Black Power movements, which all challenged the established social order of the 1970s. As a film about "a revolting girl revolting against the little-girl box in which she was stuck" and army of men trying to put her back, "The Exorcist" fits into a tradition of horror movies that used gender-bending to create a monster, Trimble notes.


title: The Exorcist

text: As a graduate student, Texas State religious studies professor Joseph Laycock wrote that the popular embrace of "The Exorcist" also pointed to reactionary popular trends in American religion. ""The Exorcist" is a depiction not of ecclesiastical Catholicism but of "folk piety"", which he also describes as extra-ecclesiastical religion, pursued by the lay masses, "incorporat[ing] beliefs about divine or supernatural intervention in the realm of everyday experience", as tolerant of Ouija boards and practices from other spiritual traditions as it was devout in its Catholic faith. In the early 1970s, established organized religion in America, primarily but not exclusively the Roman Catholic Church, had increasingly turned towards the rational as the country became more secular: "The authentic folk piety depicted in "The Exorcist" likely appealed to audiences [at the time] because it was a welcome alternative to rationalized religion and a cultural myth of universal secularization."


title: The Exorcist

text: Lawsuits among the creators of "The Exorcist" began even before the film was released, and have continued into the 21st century. In early November 1973, "THR" reported that Blatty had sued the studio and Friedkin, over both the credits and Friedkin banning him from the set. Friedkin said that he had only barred him from post-production. A week later Noel Marshall, the film's executive producer, said Blatty had withdrawn his complaint against the studio but still planned to sue Friedkin; he eventually settled for the "William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist"" line in the opening credits.


title: The Exorcist

text: The next round of disputes involved Friedkin and Dietz. In February 1974 she claimed that he had forced her to sign a nondisclosure agreement concerning her work in the film. While Friedkin had, in earlier publicity for the film, denied any use of a double for Blair, by the end of the month Dietz was saying that she had neither claimed to have been Blair's only double for the possession scenes nor talked about it to the media. The Screen Actors Guild ruled her contract was not binding, but then Dietz declined to arbitrate the matter.


title: The Exorcist

text: Around the same time, Warners paid Friedkin $4 million, his 10 percent share of the film's profits by that point. A year later, Friedkin sued the studio, claiming it had withheld another $8.5 million he was due under those terms. By 1978 it was reported that Friedkin had settled that suit, but by then Blatty was involved in litigation against Warners, claiming that the $15 million he had received from the studio as his share of the profit was still $1.5 million short.


title: The Exorcist

text: In 2001, following the release of the extended version, which restored 11 minutes of footage and did well critically and commercially, Blatty and Friedkin sued Warners in federal court, alleging that they had been cheated out of profits they had been led to believe they would receive in return for helping promote the film. Specifically, they had been induced to do so by a promise of a share of the sale of the cable TV rights, which the studio gave to Turner Network Television and Turner Broadcasting System for free. Warners called the suit "ludicrous" Later that year, they filed an additional suit in state court, alleging that Warners had further defrauded them by selling broadcast rights to CBS at a discount, by claiming itself as the sole author of the new version of the film when registering it with the U.S. Copyright Office and by failing to honor an oral agreement with Friedkin to share the profits.


title: The Exorcist

text: Nine years later, Blatty brought suit against Warners again, asking for the opportunity to inspect the studio's records and accounts, to see whether the studio had properly paid him what it owed. He argued that his deal with the studio made him a co-owner of the film property and thus he had unique rights to access those records. "[Warner Bros.] has asserted that Blatty must 'stand in line' with profit participants in [Warners'] other works who seek to audit [Warners]," his complaint read, "but who do not share Blatty's status as a co-owner."


title: The Exorcist

text: Within a year of "The Exorcist"s release, two films were quickly made that appeared to appropriate elements of its plot or production design. Warner took legal action against the producers of both, accusing them of copyright infringement. The lawsuits resulted in one film being pulled from distribution and the other one having to change its advertisements.


title: The Exorcist

text: "Abby", released almost a year after "The Exorcist", put a blaxploitation spin on the material. In it a Yoruba demon released during an archeological dig in Africa crosses the Atlantic Ocean and possesses the archaeologist's daughter at home in Kentucky. Director William Girdler acknowledged the movie was intended to cash in on the success of "The Exorcist". Warner's lawsuit early in 1975 resulted in most prints of the film being confiscated; the film has rarely been screened since and is not available on any home media.


title: The Exorcist

text: Later, in 1975, Warners brought suit against Film Ventures International (FVI) over "Beyond the Door", which had also been released near the end of 1974, alleging that its main character, also a possessed woman whose head spins around completely, projectile vomits and speaks with a deep voice when possessed, infringed the studio's copyright on Regan. Federal judge David W. Williams of the Central District of California held first that since Blatty had based the character on what he was told was a true story, Regan was not original to either film and thus Warner could not hold a copyright on Regan. Even if she "had" been a creation, she could not be copyrighted since she was subordinate to the story. The writers of the FVI film had also further distanced themselves from an infringement claim by having their possessed female, Jessica, be a pregnant adult woman.


title: The Exorcist

text: Williams held for Warners on a minor issue. Some of "Beyond the Door"s advertising graphics, such as an image of light coming from behind a door into a darkened room, and the letter "T" drawn as a Christian cross, were similar enough to those used to promote "The Exorcist" that the public could reasonably have been confused into thinking the two films were the same, or made by the same people, and enjoined FVI from further use of those graphics.


title: The Exorcist

text: ""The Exorcist" has done for the horror film what "" did for science fiction", wrote the "Cinefantastique" reviewer who had described the vomit-covered bathroom, "legitimizing it in the eyes of thousands who previously considered horror movies nothing more than a giggle". In the years following, studios allotted large budgets to films like "The Omen", "The Sentinel", "Burnt Offerings", "Audrey Rose" and "The Amityville Horror", all of which had similar themes or plot elements and cast established stars, who until then had often avoided the genre until their later years. Friedkin's use of work like "Polymorphia" in the film's score also led to the use of similar modern avant-garde composers like Penderecki in later horror films like "The Shining", and composers of original music for those films adopted some of their techniques, like dissonant intervals such as (particularly) tritones, sound massing and tone clusters, to create unease and tension.


title: The Exorcist

text: The film's success led Warner to initiate , one of the first times a studio had done that with a major film that had not been planned to have one, launching a franchise. While many of the classic horror films of the 1930s, like "Frankenstein" and "King Kong" had spawned series of films over the decades, the practice had declined in the 60s, and although there had been some exceptions, like "Bride of Frankenstein", most sequels had been considered secondary properties for the studios. The other big-budget horror films made in the wake of "The Exorcist" also led to sequels and franchises of their own.


title: The Exorcist

text: Amy Chambers observes that Friedkin also set a precedent by not only extensively consulting with technical experts in the subject matter, in "The Exorcist"s case physicians and priests, but foregrounding that reliance on expertise by including those experts' names and credentials in the film's credits and press kit, a practice now commonplace.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist" has become a cultural reference point in the years since its release. Its imagery, particularly Regan in her bedroom, has been used by political cartoonists like Mike Luckovich and Mike Peters. In 1998, "New York Times" columnist Maureen Dowd invoked the film when criticizing the nation's apparent indulgence of President Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions: "[P]eople are saying things so bizarre they could have come out of Linda Blair in "The Exorcist." ... You expect the feminists' heads to start rotating on their necks any moment now."


title: The Exorcist

text: In 1992 the hard rock band Pantera named its sixth studio album "Vulgar Display of Power", from the possessed Regan's demurral when Karras asks why, if the possessing spirit is indeed the Devil, she would continue asking him to remove the straps on her arms rather than making them disappear. The title was reused for a book about the band's adventures on tour culminating in the onstage shooting death of guitarist Dimebag Darrell.


title: The Exorcist

text: Popular comedy used the film as an inspiration; "Saturday Night Live" parodied the film during its first season, with Richard Pryor in the Karras role and Laraine Newman as Regan. "Ghostbusters", the 1984 comedy blockbuster, included joking references to many successful horror movies from the previous two decades, including "The Exorcist". In one scene, Sigourney Weaver's character has become possessed by an evil spirit, as Bill Murray's Dr. Peter Venkman attempts to communicate with her she begins to speak with a deep, husky voice and levitates above her bed. In 1990, Blair starred as a housewife needing exorcism in the parody "Repossessed".


title: The Exorcist

text: Court opinions in cases not concerning the film have referenced it. In 1999, Massachusetts federal judge Reginald C. Lindsay, considering a product-disparagement suit brought by Gillette against competitor Norelco, noted that in one of the latter's commercials for its Reflex Action shaver " the razor corrodes and twists its 'neck and head,' apparently in an effort to evoke recollection of a scene from the motion picture "The Exorcist". At the same time, the voice-over states: 'A blade can leave you feeling irritated. What would possess it to do that?'" A Colorado lawyer challenging his 2005 suspension from the bar admitted his own recorded voice on obscene phone messages he left his wife while under the influence of cocaine sounded like the possessed Regan. Litigants have made similar observations about people experiencing mental illness.


title: The Exorcist

text: Religious wariness toward the film abated as years passed and it became more widely accepted as a classic. ""The Exorcist" exposed people around the world to the question of evil in a new and terrifying way", wrote Jesuit Jim McDermott in a 2019 issue of "America". "It is a film that takes on big questions and aspires to do much more than shock." In the heavily Baptist South, "The Exorcist" was seen as acceptable viewing amid denunciations of many other horror films that supposedly promoted the occult, because, as a writer in "Slate" recalls, it and movies like "The Omen" "didn't encourage people to dabble in the dark arts, they "warned" people. More to the point, they acknowledged the existence of God, the influence of Satan, and the truth of the Bible."


title: The Exorcist

text: In 2015 the District of Columbia posted a commemorative plaque on what had become known as the Exorcist steps in Georgetown, since they had become a popular tourist attraction. At a ceremony the day before Halloween that year, Blatty and Friedkin were among those present as the plaque, with Mayor Muriel Bowser's signature, was unveiled. Friedkin said that having his name on the plaque was a greater honor than another Academy Award would have been, since "the Academy may come and go. Its importance has been diminished over the years anyway. But that plaque on those steps is going to be there for a very long time."


title: The Exorcist

text: Vietnamese-born Danish artist Danh Võ saw "The Exorcist" with his family after his Catholic mother became interested in horror films following the family's journey from Vietnam to Europe after the war. He was seven at the time. In 2016 he developed an exhibit inspired by the film that, other than the title, a string of 266 obscene phrases shouted by the possessed Regan to Karras, does not visually reference the film. The White Cube gallery in Hong Kong, which showed it, describes it as 600 carved mammoth fossils and a 17th-century ivory figurine suspended from the gallery's ceiling.


title: The Exorcist

text: "The Exorcist" was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 1974, winning two. It was the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture. The film was also nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards, winning four, including Best Motion Picture – Drama.


title: The Exorcist

text: Robert Knudson and Chris Newman won "The Exorcist"s first Oscar, for Best Sound, thanking Friedkin, the studio and their crews. Blatty won for Best Adapted Screenplay; the award was presented by Angie Dickinson and Miller, who applauded vigorously as Blatty came out to accept it. In his short speech, Blatty posthumously thanked William Bloom, "who taught me the rudiments and the craft of screenwriting" and Friedkin. He also paid tribute to both his parents, "who came to this country on a cattle boat and whose love and whose courage have brought me to this moment and to this place."


title: The Exorcist

text: The morning after the ceremony, Blatty complained bitterly about the minimal awards the film had received. In commentary published on the front page of "The Hollywood Reporter" (THR), he said it was a "disgrace" that "The Exorcist" had not won more awards, that it should have won all it was nominated for. It was, he asserted, "head and shoulders, the finest film made this year and in many other years".


title: The Exorcist

text: "Since I won an award, perhaps it would be considered ungracious," he admitted to "THR". "But I'd rather be ungracious than be a hypocrite." He accused veteran director George Cukor of having led a campaign against giving the film "any" awards, accounting for its meager haul.


title: The Exorcist

text: The film has gone on to spawn multiple sequels and an overarching media franchise including a television series.


title: The Exorcist

text: A year after "The Exorcist"s release, "New York" reported that a sequel was planned. But Blatty, still in court with the studio over money owed in addition to the $20 million he had reportedly already received, would not be involved. Friedkin, similarly dissatisfied with his share of the profits, agreed only to produce. Ultimately he, too, had nothing to do with the sequel, nor did any of the original cast who had played major characters beyond Blair and von Sydow. John Boorman, who had turned down the original as "negative and destructive", directed, considering the sequel to be "healthy" in comparison, and Richard Burton played the lead; the film also suffered production problems, particular cast and crew health issues, and was beset by regular script rewrites and personnel changes. On release in 1977, "" had what was at the time Warners' largest opening-day gross and ultimately made some money, but revenues dropped 60 percent in the film's second week and ultimately grosses were minimal compared to the original. Based on having seen 40 minutes of the film following a chance encounter with one of the technicians working on it at a color lab, Friedkin recalled on a 2019 podcast hosted by Dante and Josh Olson that "Exorcist II" was "the worst piece of shit I've ever seen ... a fucking disgrace" given all the talent involved.


title: The Exorcist

text: In the wake of "Exorcist II"s failure, Blatty and Friedkin began talking about a sequel of their own. They began planning a story and script, but after Friedkin dropped out of the project over creative differences with Blatty, Blatty continued and, finding little interest in making a third "Exorcist" film, decided, instead, to tell the story as a new novel: "Legion", published in 1983. He saw the story, in which Kinderman investigates a string of murders that seem to have been committed by a possessed, resurrected Father Karras, as not so much a sequel to "The Exorcist" but an exploration of the same themes within the same fictional universe by some of the original's minor characters. But the media saw it differently, and it sold well.


title: The Exorcist

text: Blatty adapted a more streamlined script from the novel, and eventually chose Morgan Creek Productions over Carolco since that studio had wanted him to write an entirely new script in which an adult Regan gives birth to possessed twins while Morgan Creek was satisfied with his story. But Morgan Creek insisted on calling it "The Exorcist III" even though the story lacked any exorcism scenes (one was added after principal photography, with Nicol Williamson cast in the role). Blatty directed, with George C. Scott taking over for the deceased Lee J. Cobb as Kinderman, Ed Flanders replacing O'Malley as Dyer and Miller returning as Karras or his double. Brad Dourif played the film's serial killer, and Scott Wilson the chief psychiatrist at the hospital where the film is mostly set. The film took in $39 million on its release in 1990; Blatty wrote a satirical novel about the experience called "Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing". In 2014 a VHS copy of Blatty's cut of the film was found, restored to the best it could be, and released on a two-disc collector's edition Blu-ray two years later.


title: The Exorcist

text: At that time, Morgan Creek and James G. Robinson, producer of "Exorcist III", had commissioned the development of a prequel story, one telling the story of a younger Father Merrin's first confrontation with the demon. As with the preceding three films in the franchise, making the film presented many problems once it was greenlighted seven years later. Novelist Caleb Carr was hired to rewrite William Wisher Jr.'s original script, with John Frankenheimer set to direct and Liam Neeson to star as Merrin, but when cameras began rolling in late 2002 Paul Schrader was in the director's chair making his first horror film in two decades, now a Stellan Skarsgård vehicle, as Frankenheimer had died and Neeson was no longer interested. Four more writers had been involved and the budget doubled to $38 million by the time shooting ended in early 2003.


title: The Exorcist

text: Robinson was unimpressed with the film, believing it lacked the horror elements that had characterized the earlier films in the franchise. He and Schrader feuded for the rest of the year over how to edit it, until Robinson finally decided to hire Renny Harlin to reshoot most of the film with a new cast save Skarsgård. Shortly after beginning principal photography in Rome, Harlin was struck by a car, breaking his leg severely enough to require surgery and stopping production for two weeks; he would finish the remaining six weeks on crutches. The cost of making both films combined to over $100 million.


title: The Exorcist

text: Harlin's version, heavy on action and horror, was released in August 2004 as "", and failed with critics and at the box office. Blatty called watching it "the most humiliating professional experience of my life", blaming not Harlin but Morgan Creek. He had watched it with Schrader, who said its poor quality made it likely that the studio would try to save face by releasing his version, and returned to do the editing. It got a limited release in May 2005 as "", a version Blatty found much more enjoyable.


title: The Exorcist

text: The 2016 Fox TV series "The Exorcist" followed two priests investigating possible cases of demonic possession and performing exorcisms when necessary. Five episodes into the first of its two seasons, the mother of a young woman convinced her daughter was possessed and determined to have an exorcism performed was revealed to be an adult Regan living under an assumed name, making the series a direct sequel to the original film that did not acknowledge either of the filmed sequels. It was the network's lowest-rated show during its second season, leading to its cancellation.


title: The Exorcist

text: In 2020, Morgan Creek announced a reboot of the film. Fans were hostile to the idea and petitioned to have it canceled. At the end of the year, Blumhouse Productions and Morgan Creek said that the reboot would instead be a "direct sequel" to the 1973 film directed by David Gordon Green. In July 2021, it was announced that Green would be directing a trilogy of sequels. Jason Blum will produce, alongside James and David Robinson. Burstyn will reprise her role from the original film, with Leslie Odom Jr. co-starring. The projects will be joint ventures between Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, to be distributed by Universal, which joined with Peacock to purchase distribution rights for $400 million. The second and third films of the trilogy are being optioned as Peacock exclusive films; , theatrical release for the first film is scheduled for October 13, 2023.


title: The Exorcist

text: Blatty's script for the film has been published in two versions. "William Peter Blatty on The Exorcist: From Novel to Film", in 1974, included the first draft of the screenplay. In 1998 the script was anthologized in "The Exorcist/Legion - Two Classic Screenplays", and again as a standalone text in 2000.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: A wedding anniversary is the anniversary of the date a wedding took place. Couples may take the occasion to celebrate their relationship, either privately or with a larger party. Special celebrations and gifts are often given for particular anniversary milestones (e.g. 10, 15, 20, 25 years). In some cultures, traditional names exist for milestone anniversaries; for instance, fifty years of marriage may be known as a "golden wedding anniversary", "golden anniversary" or "golden wedding".


title: Wedding anniversary

text: Celebrating wedding anniversaries as "gold" (50 years) or "silver" (25 years) is documented in Germanic countries since the 1500s. In the twentieth century, commercialism led to the celebration of more anniversaries according to a list of predetermined gifts.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: In some parts of the world, couples can receive special recognition from government officials for particular milestones. In the Commonwealth realms, one can receive a message from the monarch for 60th, 65th, and 70th wedding anniversaries, and any wedding anniversary after that. This is done by applying to Buckingham Palace in the United Kingdom, or to the governor-general's office in the other Commonwealth realms.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: In Australia, one can receive a letter of congratulations from the governor-general on the 50th and all subsequent wedding anniversaries. The prime minister, the federal Opposition leader, local members of both state and federal parliaments, and state governors may also send salutations for the same anniversaries.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: In Canada, one can also receive a message from the governor-general for the 50th anniversary, and every fifth anniversary after that.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: In the United States, a couple can receive an anniversary greeting card from the president for the 50th and all subsequent anniversaries.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: Roman Catholics may apply for a papal blessing through their local diocese for wedding anniversaries of a special nature (25th, 50th, 60th, etc.).


title: Wedding anniversary

text: Some significant anniversaries have names which suggest appropriate or traditional gifts. These gifts may be exchanged by spouses or given by guests at parties; they may also influence an anniversary party's theme or decoration. These gifts vary in different countries, but some anniversary years now have well-established connections common to most nations: 5th Wood, 10th Tin, 15th Crystal, 20th China, 25th Silver, 30th Pearl, 35th Jade, 40th Ruby, 45th Sapphire, 50th Gold, 60th Diamond, and 70th Platinum. In English-speaking countries, the fifth year gift (wood) was cut on the day of celebration and then presented to the wife as a finished item before the next two quarter days had passed.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: In 1937, the American National Retail Jeweler Association (now known as Jewelers of America as a result of an organizational merger) introduced an expanded list of gifts. The revamped list gave a gift for each year up to the 25th, and then for every fifth anniversary after that.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: In South India, 60th and 80th wedding anniversaries are accompanied by large celebrations similar to weddings. In Tamil Nadu, there is a famous Thirukadaiyur Temple where special pujas are conducted for wedding anniversaries.


title: Wedding anniversary

text: The podcast "A Problem Squared" suggested graphite as a -1th wedding anniversary gift (in a situation where the couple knows their elopement date more than a year ahead of time).


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Midnight in Paris is a 2011 fantasy comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. Set in Paris, the film follows Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a screenwriter, who is forced to confront the shortcomings of his relationship with his materialistic fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and their divergent goals, which become increasingly exaggerated as he travels back in time each night at midnight.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Produced by the Spanish group Mediapro and Allen's US-based Gravier Productions, the film stars Wilson, McAdams, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Tom Hiddleston, Marion Cotillard, and Michael Sheen. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was released in the United States on May 20, 2011. The film opened to critical acclaim and is considered one of Allen's best films in recent years. In 2012, it won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. It was nominated for three other Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Art Direction.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: In 2010, Gil Pender, a successful but disillusioned Hollywood screenwriter, and his fiancée Inez are in Paris vacationing with Inez's wealthy, Republican parents. Gil is struggling to finish his debut novel, about a man who works in a nostalgia shop, and finds himself drawn to the rich artistic history of Paris, especially the Lost Generation of the 1920s.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Inez dismisses his ambitions to move to Paris and write as a delusional dream and encourages him to stick with more lucrative screenwriting assignments. By chance, they meet Inez's friend Paul and his wife Carol, and Inez invites them to join her and Gil as they sightsee.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Paul speaks with great authority but questionable accuracy on every subject they encounter, even contradicting a tour guide at the Musée Rodin, where he insists his knowledge of Rodin's relationships is more accurate than the guide's. Gil finds him pedantic and annoying, yet Inez adores him.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: A night of wine tasting gets Gil drunk, and he decides to walk the streets of Paris to return to the hotel; Inez goes off with Paul and Carol by taxi. Gil stops to get his bearings, and at midnight, a 1920s car pulls up beside him. The passengers urge him to join them and he finds himself at a party for Jean Cocteau attended by notable people of the 1920s Paris art scene: Cole Porter, his wife Linda Lee Porter, and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Zelda gets bored and encourages Scott and Gil to leave with her. They first head to Bricktops, where they see Josephine Baker dancing, and then to a cafe where they run into Ernest Hemingway and Juan Belmonte.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: After Zelda and Scott leave, Gil and Hemingway discuss writing, and Hemingway offers to show Gil's novel to Gertrude Stein. But as Gil exits the building to fetch his manuscript from his hotel, he returns to 2010: the cafe where he encountered Hemingway is now a laundromat.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: The next night, Gil tries to share his time-travel experience with Inez, but she ditches Gil before the clock strikes midnight. When it does, the same car returns. Gil joins Hemingway on his way to visit Gertrude Stein’s apartment, where Gil is introduced to Stein, who is in the midst of giving Pablo Picasso a negative critique of a new painting of Picasso’s lover Adriana. Gil is instantly drawn to Adriana, a costume designer who has also had affairs with Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Braque. Stein reads aloud the novel's first line:


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Back in 2010, Gil continues his time travel for the next couple of nights. Inez is unimpressed with the boulevards and bistros and Gil's disappearing, while her father is suspicious and hires a private detective to follow him.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Adriana leaves Picasso and continues to bond with Gil; although, he is conflicted by his attraction to her. Gil explains his inner conflict to Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, and Luis Buñuel, but as surrealists, they find nothing unusual about his claim of coming from the future. Gil later suggests the plot of the film "The Exterminating Angel" to Buñuel, which he doesn't understand.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Inez and her parents are traveling to Mont Saint Michel while Gil meets Gabrielle, an antique dealer and fellow admirer of the Lost Generation. He buys a Cole Porter gramophone record from her and later finds Adriana's diary from the 1920s at a book stall by the Seine which reveals that she was in love with him. Reading that she dreamed of receiving a gift of earrings from him and then making love to him, Gil tries to steal a pair of Inez's earrings to give to Adriana, but is thwarted by Inez's early return to the hotel room.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Gil buys earrings for Adriana and returns to the past. He takes Adriana for a walk, they kiss, and he gives her the earrings. While she's putting them on, a horse-drawn carriage comes down the street, and a richly dressed couple inside the carriage invite Gil and Adriana for a ride. The carriage transports the passengers to the Belle Époque, an era Adriana considers Paris's Golden Age.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Gil and Adriana go first to Maxim's Paris, then to the Moulin Rouge where they meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Edgar Degas. Gil asks what they believe the best era was, and the three agree it is the Renaissance.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: The excited Adriana is offered a job designing ballet costumes and proposes to Gil that they stay, but Gil, upon observing the unhappiness of Adriana and the other artists, realizes that chasing nostalgia is fruitless because life, and thus, the present, is always "a little unsatisfying." Adriana, however, decides to stay in the 1890s, and they part ways.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Gil rewrites the first two chapters of his novel and retrieves his draft from Stein, who praises his progress as a writer and tells him that Hemingway likes it but questions why the main character has not realized that his fiancée, based on Inez, is having an affair with a character based on Paul.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Gil returns to 2010 and confronts Inez. She admits to having slept with Paul, but disregards it as a meaningless fling and that they can discuss it after their wedding. Gil breaks up with her and decides to move to Paris. Walking by the Seine at midnight, Gil bumps into Gabrielle; he offers to walk her home after it starts to rain. They learn that they share a love for Paris in the rain.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: This is the second time McAdams and Wilson co-starred as a couple; they did so before in 2005's "Wedding Crashers". In comparing the two roles, McAdams describes the one in "Midnight in Paris" as being far more antagonistic than the role in "Wedding Crashers". Allen had high praises for her performance and that of co-star Marion Cotillard. Cotillard was cast as Wilson's other love interest, the charismatic Adriana.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Carla Bruni, singer-songwriter and wife of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, was recruited by Allen for a role as a museum guide. There were false reports that Allen re-filmed Bruni's scenes with Léa Seydoux, but Seydoux rebuffed these rumors revealing she had an entirely separate role in the film. Allen also shot down reports that a scene with Bruni required over 30 takes: "I am appalled. I read these things and I could not believe my eyes ... These are not exaggerations, but inventions from scratch. There is absolutely no truth." He continued to describe Bruni as "very professional" and insisted he was pleased with her scenes, stating that "every frame will appear in the film."


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Allen employed a reverse approach in writing the screenplay for this film, by building the film's plot around a conceived movie title, 'Midnight in Paris'. The time-travel portions of Allen's storyline are evocative of the Paris of the 1920s described in Ernest Hemingway's 1964 posthumously published memoir "A Moveable Feast," with Allen's characters interacting with the likes of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and uses the phrase "a moveable feast" in two instances, with a copy of the book appearing in one scene. Allen originally wrote the character Gil as an East Coast intellectual, but he rethought it when he and casting director Juliet Taylor began considering Owen Wilson for the role. "I thought Owen would be charming and funny but my fear was that he was not so Eastern at all in his persona," says Allen. Allen realized that making Gil a Californian would actually make the character richer, so he rewrote the part and submitted it to Wilson, who readily agreed to do it. Allen describes him as "a natural actor". The set-up has certain plot points in common with the 1990s British sitcom "Goodnight Sweetheart".


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Principal photography began in Paris in July 2010. Allen states that the fundamental aesthetic for the camera work was to give the film a warm ambience. He describes that he likes it (the cinematography), "intensely red, intensely warm, because if you go to a restaurant and you're there with your wife or your girlfriend, and it's got red-flecked wallpaper and turn-of-the-century lights, you both look beautiful. Whereas if you're in a seafood restaurant and the lights are up, everybody looks terrible. So it looks nice. It's very flattering and very lovely." To achieve this he and his cinematographer, Darius Khondji, used primarily warm colors in the film's photography, filmed in flatter weather and employed limited camera movements, in attempts to draw little attention to itself. This is the first Woody Allen film to go through a digital intermediate, instead of being color timed in the traditional photochemical way. According to Allen, its use here is a test to see if he likes it enough to use on his future films.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Allen's directorial style placed more emphasis on the romantic and realistic elements of the film than the fantasy elements. He states that he "was interested only in this romantic tale, and anything that contributed to it that was fairytale was right for me. I didn't want to get into it. I only wanted to get into what bore down on his (Owen Wilson's) relationship with Marion."


title: Midnight in Paris

text: The film opens with a -minute postcard-view montage of Paris, showing some of the iconic tourist sites. Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" describes the montage as a stylistic approach that lasts longer than necessary to simply establish location. According to Turan, "Allen is saying: Pay attention – this is a special place, a place where magic can happen." "Midnight in Paris" is the first Woody Allen film shot entirely on location in Paris, though both "Love and Death" (1975) and "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996) were partially filmed there.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Filming locations include Giverny, (near Notre Dame), Montmartre, Deyrolle, the Palace of Versailles, the Opéra, Pont Alexandre III, the Sacré-Cœur, the Île de la Cité itself, and streets near the Panthéon.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: The film is co-produced by Allen's Gravier Productions and the Catalan company Mediapro and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for distribution. It is the fourth film the two companies have co-produced, the others being "Sweet and Lowdown", "Whatever Works" and "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger".


title: Midnight in Paris

text: In promoting the film, Allen was willing to do only a limited amount of publicity at its Cannes Film Festival debut in May. Wilson was already committed to promoting Pixar's "Cars 2", which opened in late June, several weeks after Allen's film arrived in cinemas. Due to these challenges and the relatively small ($10 million) budget for promotion, Sony Classics had to perform careful media buying and press relations to promote the film.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: The film made its debut at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday May 11, when it opened the festival as a first screening for both professionals and the public; it was released nationwide in France that same day, Wednesday being the traditional day of change in French cinemas. It went on limited release in six theaters in the United States on May 20 and took $599,003 in the first weekend, spreading to 944 cinemas three weeks later, when it went on wide release.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: "Midnight in Paris" achieved the highest gross of any of Allen's films in North America, before adjusting for inflation. The film earned $56.3 million in North America, overtaking his previous best, "Hannah and Her Sisters", at $40 million. Documents from the Sony Pictures hack revealed the film turned a profit of $24 million.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: As of 2016, "Midnight in Paris" is the highest-grossing film directed by Woody Allen, with $151 million worldwide on a $17 million budget.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: "Midnight in Paris" received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 93%, based on 224 reviews, with an average rating of 7.81/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It may not boast the depth of his classic films, but the sweetly sentimental "Midnight in Paris" is funny and charming enough to satisfy Woody Allen fans." The film has received Allen's best reviews and score on the site since 1994's "Bullets Over Broadway". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 81 out of 100, based on 40 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Midnight in Paris

text: The film received some generally positive reviews after its premiere at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. Todd McCarthy from "The Hollywood Reporter" praised Darius Khondji's cinematography and claimed the film "has the concision and snappy pace of Allen's best work".


title: Midnight in Paris

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" commented on Owen Wilson's success at playing the Woody Allen persona. He states that the film is marvelously romantic and credibly blends "whimsy and wisdom". He praised Khondji's cinematography, the supporting cast and remarked that it is a memorable film and that "Mr. Allen has often said that he does not want or expect his own work to survive, but as modest and lighthearted as "Midnight in Paris" is, it suggests otherwise: Not an ambition toward immortality so much as a willingness to leave something behind—a bit of memorabilia, or art, if you like that word better—that catches the attention and solicits the admiration of lonely wanderers in some future time."


title: Midnight in Paris

text: This is Woody Allen's 41st film. He writes his films himself, and directs them with wit and grace. I consider him a treasure of the cinema. Some people take him for granted, although "Midnight in Paris" reportedly charmed even the jaded veterans of the Cannes press screenings. There is nothing to dislike about it. Either you connect with it or not. I'm wearying of movies that are for "everybody" – which means, nobody in particular. "Midnight in Paris" is for me, in particular, and that's just fine with "moi".


title: Midnight in Paris

text: Richard Roeper, an American film critic, gave "Midnight in Paris" an "A"; referring to it as a "wonderful film" and "one of the best romantic comedies in recent years". He commented that the actors are uniformly brilliant and praised the film's use of witty one-liners.


title: Midnight in Paris

text: In "The Huffington Post", Rob Kirkpatrick said the film represented a return to form for the director ("it's as if Woody has rediscovered Woody") and called "Midnight in Paris" "a surprising film that casts a spell over us and reminds us of the magical properties of cinema, and especially of Woody Allen's cinema."