Development Aspects of
Blatty's novel were inspired by the 1949 exorcism performed by
Jesuit priest
William S. Bowdern. It sold poorly until Blatty captivated
The Dick Cavett Shows audience with a discussion of whether the devil existed. Soon afterwards the novel topped the
New York Times best seller list. Despite Blatty's previous screenwriting experience on
Blake Edwards' films, studios had been uninterested in adapting
The Exorcist before publication. collapsed over script differences and Blatty's discovery that Monash was trying to wrest control of the film.
Writing Blatty's screenplay follows the plot of his novel closely, but narrows the story's focus. Subplots like the desecration of the churches and the subsequent relationship that develops between Karras and Kinderman, Karras's efforts to convince the Church bureaucracy to approve the exorcism, and the ongoing medical investigations of Regan's condition are less prominent in the film, as are supporting characters including Chris's household staff, Dennings, and Regan's father. The overall time frame is condensed. Some scenes, particularly those with sexual content, were toned down for the film adaptation since an actress of approximately Regan's age was expected to be cast. The scene where Regan masturbates with a crucifix was, in the book, more prolonged and explicit, with Regan seriously injuring herself yet attaining orgasm. Blatty also made the screenplay unambiguous about Regan's condition. In his novel, every symptom and behavior she exhibits that might indicate possession is counterbalanced with a reference to an actual case where the same phenomena were found to have natural, scientific causes. Aside from Karras' initial professional skepticism, that perspective is absent from the film. Friedkin also rejected Blatty's friend Shirley MacLaine since she had starred in
The Possession of Joel Delaney, a similar film. Friedkin had first spoken to stage actor and playwright
Jason Miller after a performance of his play
That Championship Season, and given him a copy of the novel. Miller had received a Catholic education and studied to be a Jesuit priest for three years at
Catholic University of America until experiencing a spiritual crisis similar to Karras's. Upon reading the novel, he told Friedkin "[Karras] is me". Friedkin responded that Keach had already been signed, but granted his request for a screen test. During the test, Miller and Burstyn performed the scene where Chris informs Karras that she suspects Regan might be possessed. He then filmed Burstyn interviewing Miller about his life and asked him to recite
Mass as if for the first time. After viewing the footage the next morning, Friedkin realized that Miller's "dark good looks, haunted eyes, quiet intensity, and low, compassionate voice" were exactly what the part needed. The studio then bought out Keach's contract.
Regan Directors considered for
The Exorcist doubted a young actress could carry the film;
Mike Nichols had turned it down for that reason, but would later regret it. The first actresses considered had been in other successful films and television series.
Pamelyn Ferdin was turned down as too familiar.
Denise Nickerson, who had played
Violet Beauregarde in
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, said in later interviews her family found the script too dark.
Janet Leigh would not let her daughter,
Jamie Lee Curtis, audition. Friedkin was considering older actresses whose credits were primarily in modeling and a single soap opera role. Friedkin later recalled her as "[S]mart but not precocious ... cute but not beautiful. A normal, happy 12-year-old girl". He had planned to use Blair's electronically treated voice for Pazuzu's dialogue, but decided that a more
androgynous voice was better, and cast experienced voice actress
Mercedes McCambridge. McCambridge's name was included in the credits on all but the first 30 prints, but the dispute prevented the release of a soundtrack album with excerpts of dialogue.
Warner Bros. reportedly forced Friedkin to use
Eileen Dietz, then Blair's senior of 15 years, as Blair's stunt double. Blair, who recalls Friedkin telling her the film would not succeed if she was not in as many shots as possible, estimates that Dietz is in 17 seconds of the film. Dietz, angry that her contribution to the film had been minimized, claimed in the media to have performed
all the possession scenes. The studio ultimately measured her screen presence at 28.25 seconds, but denied that her contribution was dramatically significant.
Supporting roles Warner Bros. wanted
Marlon Brando for the role of
Lankester Merrin, but Friedkin refused. Friedkin cast Vasiliki Maliaros as Karras's mother after reportedly encountering her in a
Greek restaurant.
Direction In addition to Nichols, many directors were considered, including
Arthur Penn,
Stanley Kubrick,
John Boorman and
Peter Bogdanovich. The studio finally hired
Mark Rydell, but Blatty insisted on Friedkin, with whom he was acquainted, as he had been impressed by his film
The French Connection. Blatty saw Friedkin, an acquaintance, as "a director who can bring the look of documentary realism to this incredible story, and ... is never going to lie to me." The studio demurred, until
Connection was released to commercial success and a
Best Picture Academy Award. An early clash during production led to Warner Bros. telling Blatty he could not take any action against Friedkin. Afterwards, Blatty informed the studio he could no longer have any responsibility for controlling the budget; while he and Friedkin reconciled, production costs soon exceeded the initial $4.2 million ($ in ) budget. Friedkin manipulated the actors to get genuine reactions. Unsatisfied with O'Malley's performance as Dyer ministers to the dying Karras at the end of the film, he slapped him hard across the face to generate a deeply solemn yet literally shaken reaction for the scene, offending many Catholic crew members. He also fired
blanks without warning to elicit shock from Miller for a take; Crewmembers found Friedkin difficult to work with. On the first day of shooting, he had a wall removed to create space for the
dolly to back up from a shot of bacon frying, then sent the prop master to look for preservative-free bacon, difficult to find at the time, since he did not like the way it curled. Another crewmember recalled returning after three days of sick leave to find Friedkin still shooting the same scene. Dietz recalls the main delay being reshoots, even of scenes that had been difficult to stage and film the first time, such as Regan's bed shaking. "People were literally placing bets on what he would reshoot next."
Filming and locations , looking north, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Principal photography began August 14, 1972. Although the film is set in Washington, D.C., many interior scenes were shot in New York City. The MacNeil residence interiors were filmed at CECO Studios in
Manhattan, with Karras's confrontation with his uncle, shot at
Goldwater Memorial Hospital, now the site of
Cornell Tech, on
Roosevelt Island in the
East River between
Manhattan and
Queens; the scenes with Karras's mother in the hospital were filmed at
Bellevue. The scene where Father Karras listens to the tapes of Regan was filmed in the basement of
Fordham University's
Keating Hall, where O'Malley was an assistant professor of theology. The film's opening sequences were filmed in and near
Mosul,
Iraq, at a time when
the US and Iraq did not have diplomatic relations; Warner Bros. feared that Friedkin and his crew might not be able to return. He negotiated filming arrangements directly with local officials of the ruling
Ba'ath Party, who required that he hire local workers as crew The archaeological dig site shown is
Hatra, south-west of Mosul. Temperatures during the days reached , limiting shooting to dawn and dusk. The exterior of the MacNeil house was a family home on 36th and Prospect streets in Washington. A
mansard roof was added to account for the attic scene. The
neighboring stairs were padded with a half-inch () of rubber for Karras's death. The house was set back slightly from the steps, so the crew built an eastward extension with a false front to allow the stunt double playing Karras to fall directly down. 's
Keating Hall. Many Georgetown locations, on and off-campus, were used. Burstyn's first scene, where she lectures the protesters, was shot on the steps of
Healy Hall; she is also seen walking down the steps of
Lauinger Library. Other scenes used the interiors of
Dahlgren Chapel and the university president's office, used as the archbishop's office. One scene was filmed in
The Tombs, a popular local pub.
Exorcism scenes The exorcism scenes were challenging to film. Friedkin wanted the bedroom set to be cold enough to see the actors' breath, as described in the novel. A$50,000 ($ in ) Since the set lighting warmed the air, it remained cold enough to film for only three minutes at a time. Due to frequent breakdowns, It was easier to film some of the other supernatural manifestations, such as the bed rocking and the curtains blowing since the walls and ceiling of the set were capable of being moved to accommodate a camera. After the scene where the ceiling cracks it was replaced with one attached to the walls, requiring a hole be cut in it for the rig to go through when Regan
levitates, the most challenging shot in the sequence. Friedkin wanted to evoke visually the language Blatty used in the novel for this scene, likening Merrin to "a melancholy traveler frozen in time", standing next to a streetlight in the fog when he gets out of the cab. It was so realistic that Blair felt uncomfortable in its presence. caused audiences the most discomfort, according to Blatty, who himself never watched it. and "revolting". British comedian
Graeme Garden, who has a medical degree, agreed the scene was "genuinely disturbing"; in his review for the
New Scientist, he called it "irresponsible". Critic
John Kenneth Muir wrote in
Horror Films of the 1970s that the scene draws its power by merely recording what occurs and not adding anything. "It looks, sounds and feels totally real ... For a time, it is medicine that possesses Regan, not the Devil". In a 2021 article in
History of the Human Sciences, Amy C. Chambers of
Manchester Metropolitan University makes a similar observation. Finnish media professor Frans Ilkka Mäyrä notes how the scientific suggests the spiritual here as "the violent movements and noises of arteriographic machinery reach diabolical dimensions" Kermode likens it to torture, "horribly sexual in its execution". Medical professionals have described the scene, which was not in the novel but was added to the film to reflect changes in technology, as a realistic depiction of the procedure. It is also of historical interest, as radiologists were increasingly using a more distant artery instead of the
carotid for the puncture. It has also been described as the most realistic depiction of a medical procedure in a popular film. In his 2012 commentary on the DVD release of the 2000 cut, Friedkin claimed that the scene was used in radiological training film for years afterward. Special effects supervisor Marcel Vercoutere had designed a special harness, but Miles did not need it due to her college gymnastic experience. Over Blatty's objection, Friedkin cut the scene just prior to the premiere, believing it came too early in the film. Whether the scene had been shot at all was debated by fans for years afterwards. Friedkin denied having done so until Kermode found the footage in the Warner Bros. archives in the mid-1990s while researching his book on the film. It was restored in the 2000 director's cut, using an added shot showing Regan with blood flowing from her mouth. Miles was not credited. Websites devoted to the film in the early 21st century gave credit to Sylvia Hager after the 2000 re-release. This confusion may have arisen from Vercourtere's website, where he credited her and described the harness he had designed. He said the scene was cut because the harness could not be erased in post-production. According to Miles, Hager, her
lighting double, It took four hours to apply the makeup every morning. Friedkin speculated that if there was a regular Academy Award for makeup, Smith would have received it. took over 200 days to wrap. The film went $2.5 million ($ in ) over budget, except for Regan's room. Later, another set was severely damaged by the sprinkler system. The statue of Pazuzu was shipped to Hong Kong instead of Iraq, causing a two-week delay. with a fractured
coccyx. It has caused her chronic problems due to inadequate early treatment. Blair fractured her lower spine after being too loosely strapped to the rocking bed, a take also used in the finished film. She developed
scoliosis, with long-term health effects, as well as a lifelong aversion to cold from all her time in the refrigerated bedroom set wearing only a nightgown and long underwear. A carpenter cut his thumb off and a lighting technician lost a toe in different accidents. Other people connected with the film, or their family members, died—MacGowran a week after completing his scenes as Dennings. Maliaros (Mrs.Karras) also died, like her character, before the film was finished. Deaths among the crew or those close to them included the night watchman, the operator of the refrigeration system for Regan's room, and an assistant cameraman's newborn. Blair's grandfather died during the first week of production, and von Sydow had to return to Sweden after his first day shooting when his brother died, further delaying shooting. One of Miller's sons nearly died when a motorcycle struck him. Several years after the film's release,
Paul Bateson, the technician in the angiography scene, was convicted of murdering journalist Addison Verrill. Friedkin believed there might have been some supernatural interference. "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." Vercourtere said he "felt I was playing around with something I shouldn't be playing around with." To mollify the crew, Friedkin asked
Father Bermingham, the film's technical advisor, 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. British film historian Sarah Crowther believes stories of the curse were disseminated by the studio, likening it to horror producer
William Castle's elaborate marketing gimmicks. She believes most of the aspects of the curse are really just the result of Friedkin's driving, relentless production. Blatty agreed, telling Kermode that Friedkin had started the "curse" story with an interview during production in which he blamed "devils" for the film's many delays. Blatty said that "if you shoot something for a year, people are going to get hurt, people are going to die." Blair told Kermode that stories of the supposed curse circulated because viewers "chose to see a scary film, and maybe they wanted to believe all those rumors because it helped the whole process", she said. 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 related to it. ==Post-production==