Exorcist II: The Heretic New York City. William Peter Blatty claimed to have been the first person to start laughing at the theater in which he saw the film, only to be followed by the other patrons ("You'd think we were watching "The Producers""). William Friedkin, director of "The Exorcist", recalled hearing a story in which angry audience members at "Exorcist II"'s first public performance began chasing Warner Bros. executives down the street within the first ten minutes of the screening. Friedkin saw half an hour of the film: "I was at Technicolor and a guy said 'We just finished a print of "Exorcist
The Exorcist (film) on the Blu-ray release), the sequels "" and "The Exorcist III", and the prequels "" and "". The film earned $66.3 million in distributors' domestic (US/CAN) rentals during its theatrical release in 1974, becoming the second most popular film of that year (trailing "The Sting"). After several reissues, the film eventually grossed $232,671,011 in North America, which if adjusted for inflation, would be the ninth highest-grossing film of all time and the top-grossing R-rated film of all time. To date, it has a total gross of $441,071,011 worldwide. Adjusted to 2014 prices, "The Exorcist" has grossed $1.794 billion. Stanley Kauffmann,