Why Exorcist II became a notorious Hollywood flop – from Richard Burton's drinking to John Boorman almost dying

June 17, 1977. It’s no doubt a date seared in the mind of John Boorman, the British filmmaker behind such landmark films as Point Blank, Deliverance and, in later years, Excalibur and Hope and Glory. For this was the slated release of Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic, the sequel to what was then one of the biggest movies of all time. It was also the day that everything crumbled.

Back in 1973, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist was a phenomenon the likes of which Hollywood had never seen. Adapted from the novel by William Peter Blatty, it starred Ellen Burstyn and the young Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil, a 12-year-old girl who undergoes a terrifying demonic possession. Gaining 10 Oscar nominations – and two wins – it remained the top-grossing R-rated horror film for almost half a century.

Such was the visceral reaction to Friedkin’s film, people reportedly fainted, vomited and even fled the theatre. By the time Exorcist II: The Heretic hit cinemas, audiences were simply throwing things at the screen in disgust – quite literally, on opening night, at a cinema on Los Angeles's Hollywood Boulevard. "People were so, so angry and felt so betrayed," says American filmmaker David Kittredge, whose new documentary Boorman and the Devil lifts the lid on one of Hollywood’s most notorious failures.

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Despite breaking box office broke records for studio Warner Brothers on that first night, word soon spread that this was not the sequel most expected. "It was such a phenomenon, The Exorcist, and [audiences] had to steel themselves up to go to the movies because it was so terrifying," Kittredge told Radio Times. "And then they see this film that is not terrifying, and because they’re in this mode, they think it’s silly, and then they get really, really angry."

While it may not be on a par with Renny Harlin's notorious financial calamity that was the 1995 pirate movie Cutthroat Island – after all, its budget was only around $12 million – Exorcist II: The Heretic must surely be one of the greatest movie disappointments of all time. The critics savaged it; the New York Times's Vincent Canby calling it a work of "spectacular fatuousness". There wouldn’t be another movie in this nascent franchise until Blatty himself directed 1990’s Exorcist III.

For Boorman, who retreated from Hollywood and did not return to directing until his 1981 Arthurian drama Excalibur, it was brutal. "It’s the equivalent of asking the person you have a crush on to the prom and having them laugh at you," says Kittredge. "He called it shattering, humiliating. As a filmmaker, and certainly not one of Boorman’s stature, I can’t even imagine the trauma that he endured."

But what went wrong? With Friedkin not involved – he was busy making his own box-office disaster at the time, Sorcerer, the 1977 remake of The Wages of Fear – the project also didn’t have the help of Blatty. Instead, the script was penned by Broadway playwright William Goodhart. The story catches up with Regan, 16 and living in New York, barely able to recall the horrifying possession she endured in Georgetown, Washington.

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Now under the watchful eye of psychiatrist Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher), things are stirred up when Regan meets Father Lamont (Richard Burton), a priest who has been tasked with investigating the death of Father Merrin, who died conducting the exorcism on Regan years earlier. The plot gets stranger as Regan and Lamont’s brainwaves are linked together, via a device known as a ‘synchronizer’, putting the priest squarely in the world of Pazuzu, the ancient demon that terrorised Regan.

While the cast was impressive – Fletcher had just won an Oscar for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – one of the big let-downs was the performance of Burton. "I think it's pretty clear that what happened was Burton took the cheque, Burton showed up, Burton said the lines, Burton went home at six – that’s it," says Kittredge. "If you watch Sidney Lumet’s film of Equus, which was the film he did right after, you’ll see a great actor giving a great performance, and [here] he clearly didn't care. He wanted the money."

More than that, Burton’s drinking was a major issue on set. "The booze was at a very high point," continues Kittredge. "The crew members told me that they had to shoot him out before lunch because at lunch he would have several drinks and then he would come back dishevelled and not remember his lines. Even in the Barbara Pallenberg book [The Making of Exorcist II: The Heretic], she doesn’t say that he got drunk at lunch, but…says 'Boorman finds that Burton’s better in the morning!'"

If Burton’s acting was a busted flush (just watch him chew over the word "evil" – a line reading these days that would become an instant meme), this was nothing compared to other things Boorman endured. For a sequence set in Ethiopia, as Lamont is spirited back to the past by Pazazu, the production recreated the arid landscape on a Californian soundstage. From the imported dirt, the director caught a respiratory disease known as Valley Fever. Boorman was hospitalised and the production shut down for five weeks.

So serious was the illness, he was close to death. "He was in ICU. They couldn’t figure out what it was. They did spinal taps. He went through every test... it must have been absolute hell. Can you imagine spinal taps?" says Kittredge, who even saw the hospital bills when he combed through Boorman’s papers at the University of Indiana. "He had to crawl his way back from near death, and he wasn’t, according to other crew members, the same force of nature after that accident."

Other disasters occurred, both before and during the shoot. Originally, Lee J Cobb was set to return as Lt Kinderman, the police inspector seen in Friedkin’s film – this time as the lead. But he died in February 1976, aged 64, requiring a radical retooling of the script that eventually saw the creation of Burton’s Father Lamont character. Meanwhile, both Kitty Winn, who featured as Regan’s guardian Sharon, and Louise Fletcher, endured similar health issues. Winn had her gallbladder removed during the shoot, while Fletcher had hers taken out after the film wrapped.

Naturally, rumours started to fly around – rather like the 1973 original – that the production was cursed. While it no doubt felt like a good marketing ploy, both Kittredge and Boorman vehemently deny any Satanic meddling. "Boorman just shoots it down. It’s like 'No, we just had a very long shoot, and stuff happens,'" says Kittredge. "Certainly when I asked the other people, nobody seemed to think there was a curse."

Even moments in the shoot that went off without a hitch had the feeling of utter disaster around them. Take the moment that Regan is seen sleepwalking on the very edge of a New York skyscraper rooftop. Without a safety harness, Linda Blair shot the scene for real atop 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City, which housed the offices of Exorcist II’s studio backers Warner Bros at the time. A fake ledge was built on the roof, near to the real edge.

Crew members were stationed underneath, ready to catch her. "She could have easily slipped, and they would have had to have caught this girl before she fell 34 storeys," says Kittredge. So why did Boorman do it? "I mean, the dumb answer is because I think he could and I think he thought it could be safe," Kittredge continues. "If it were me, I don’t think I would have done that, but it was the '70s. I think they could get away with a lot more than they could now."

Since premiering his documentary at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, Kittredge has been able to screen the film to Boorman, who is now 93 years-old. "He said it was very moving. I believe it probably was somewhat traumatic. That’s just what I inferred from it, but he did not say that. But he’s very, very happy the movie exists, and he’s very, very happy that people are now seeking out his work more."

Although the film lacks real scares – thus failing as a sequel to one of the greatest horrors of all time – could we call it a noble failure? After all, its remarkable special effects (from flying locusts to in-camera visual illusions, achieved using semi-reflective glass) are a technical marvel. "I don’t know if Boorman would ever called it a failure," says Kittredge. "He wouldn’t use that word. I mean, he does admit it didn’t work with an audience. Be hard to not admit that given the reaction, because you cannot undersell how catastrophically this movie was received."

Nevertheless, for all its negative qualities, Kittredge plays tribute to Boorman’s artistic ambitions on the film. "It’s necessary to fail sometimes," he says. "I think that you don't get an Excalibur or a Point Blank or a Deliverance if you don’t allow artists to make an Exorcist II: The Heretic, and that’s a message that I really think that people in the industry need to understand. It cannot just be about everything working all the time and pulling away from risks, if it even remotely might not work. You can’t make any sort of art that way."

Boorman and the Devil is released in UK cinemas on Friday 25 September.

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