Troubled ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ Production Documented in ‘Boorman and the Devil’; In Theaters This September
Yellow Veil Pictures has acquired North American rights to Boorman and the Devil, a documentary about the troubled production of John Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic, reports Deadline.
The 1977 follow-up to the original The Exorcist was a commercial and critical failure, but has gone on to earn cult status.
Yellow Veil Pictures plans to open Boorman and the Devil in New York City at the Quad Cinema on August 28, before a theatrical expansion in Los Angeles and nationwide on September 4.
The documentary, directed and produced by David Kittredge, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2025. It currently holds a 100 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Like myself and the rest of our team, they’re huge cinema-lovers. It’s so exciting that a film which is not only a love letter to John Boorman, but also to ambitious filmmaking, will be handled by people who share the same passions that our team shares,” Kittredge said in a statement.
Kittredge added, “I miss big, ambitious filmmaking that takes huge risks. In 1977, John Boorman took an enormous creative and commercial swing with The Heretic which didn’t connect with almost anybody at the time — but now we can look back and appreciate how big creative swings are what going to the movies is all about.”
“Boorman is one of the greatest filmmakers that has ever stepped behind a camera, and I’m so happy to be telling the story of the one film that not only nearly destroyed him, but forever changed the way he made films.”
Boorman and the Devil is produced by Kittredge, Travis Stevens (Jodorowsky’s Dune) and Jim Fall, and features appearances by Boorman, as well as Linda Blair, Louise Fletcher, Joe Dante, Mike Flanagan, and Karyn Kusama.
Along with other filmmakers and critics, they discuss “the sequel’s enduring cult legacy and how the Hollywood era in which it was made, changed forever after its release.”
The acquisition was negotiated between Gregory Chambet on behalf of WTFilms and Hugues Barbier, Justin Timms, and Joe Yanick on behalf of Yellow Veil Pictures.
Categorized:News