It was originally written by Blatty as a screenplay for Friedkin to direct, but when Friedkin withdrew over creative differences, Blatty adapted his script into the best-selling 1983 novel ‘Legion’. Something of this schism between filmmaker’s intentions and audience’s desires was replicated in the production story of The Exorcist III. Friedkin and Blatty had intended to make a film about one lost priest’s struggles to locate his relationship with God in a modern, increasingly secular world – but what audiences really wanted to see was the devil getting all the best tunes. Then there is the abbreviated version that plays in our memories and in our memes, consisting exclusively of the film’s most sensational moments – the green projectile vomiting, the bloody stabbing masturbation with the crucifix, young Regan’s head spinning an impossible 180 degrees.Ī third version of the film, the so-called director’s (or extended) cut, was assembled later, adding more outtakes, most famously Regan’s ‘spiderwalk’ down a staircase. There is the sensitive, slow-burning psychodrama of faith in crisis that director William Friedkin actually made, working closely with his screenwriter William Peter Blatty (adapting his own 1971 novel).
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