1. THE EXORCIST IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY.
William Peter Blatty’s novel is based on the real-life 1949 exorcism of a young boy, known by the pseudonym Roland Doe. The story became national news, and caught the interest of Blatty, who was a student at Georgetown University at the time (hence the change in location).
2. WILLIAM PETER BLATTY WROTE THE EXORCIST NOVEL IN A CABIN IN CALIFORNIA.
In Beyond Comprehension: William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, one of the featurettes on Warner Bros.'s special 40th edition Blu-ray, Blatty returns to the scene of The Exorcist’s beginning: the cabin in the hills of Encino, California where he wrote the novel more than four decades ago.
3. THERE WAS SOME CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING THE EXORCIST'S R RATING.
Typically, the simple act of being given an X rating is enough to cause a bit of controversy for a movie. In the case of The Exorcist, the fact that the MPAA slapped it with an R rating instead of an X was what ruffled more than a few feathers. In a 1974 article for The New York Times, Roy Meacham wrote that by giving The Exorcist an R rating, they were essentially saying that the movie was suitable for children to see, as long as they were accompanied by an adult, but argued that the organization "certainly wasn't thinking about the youngsters and the possibility of traumatic damage to them from the movie's unremitting and violent assault upon the emotions." Meacham relayed an incident about a young girl being "removed from a showing ... and placed in an ambulance."
4. POLICE IN WASHINGTON, D.C. THREATENED TO ARREST ANYONE WHO SOLD A TICKET TO THE EXORCIST TO ANY NON-ADULTS.
Meacham's article made specific mention of Washington, D.C. being a prime place where children and teens were interested in seeing The Exorcist—partly because it had been shot in the area and they were excited to see their neighborhoods on the big screen. But local police acted swiftly to ban any underage moviegoers from entering a screening of The Exorcist (regardless of whether they were accompanied by an adult): "Early in the morning on New Year's Day, Washington became the first city ever to bar children from a film the review board said they could see. After conferring with the U.S. Attorney's Office, officers from the police department's morals division warned the management of the Cinema Theater that arrests would be made if any more tickets were sold for use by minors. A sign was put up at the theater's box office reading, As a result of a ruling by the U.S. District Attorney's Office, no one under the age of 17 will be admitted to The Exorcist.' Advertising for the film now carries a similar warning."
5. UK AUDIENCES HAD A HARD TIME FINDING THE EXORCIST FOR MANY YEARS.
While The Exorcist was a box office hit when it was released in the UK in 1974, a handful of local religious groups protested the film's release and ended up getting it banned in certain areas. But it faced an even bigger challenge several years after being released on VHS. While the movie was released without issue in 1981, the 1984 Video Recordings Act led to the movie being pulled from shelves in 1988. (Because the film featured a 12-year-old girl there was concern that it would be particularly appealing to kids in that same age demographic). It took more than a decade for the film to be made available to home viewers; in 1999, it was finally re-released.
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