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In 1971, he wrote The Exorcist, [2] the story of a twelve-year-old girl possessed by a powerful demon, that topped The New York Times Best Seller list for 17 weeks and remained on the list for 57 consecutive weeks. [2]
The Exorcist is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 novel.
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An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. After discovering a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an actual ancient Assyrian demon), a series of omens alerts him to a pending confrontation with a powerful evil, which, unknown to the reader at this point, he...
Blatty had considered writing a novel based on the Doe exorcism since he had written about it as a college student, even as he became successful as a comic novelist and screenwriter in the early 1960s, but his agent talked him out of doing so when he raised the subject. But after seeing the film version of Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby in 1968, Blatt...
Aspects of the Father Merrin character were based on the British archaeologist Gerald Lankester Harding, who had excavated the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found and whom Blatty had met in Beirut. Blatty has stated that Harding "was the physical model in my mind when I created the character [of Merrin], whose first name, please note, i...
According to research from the Spanish Book Institute, the Spanish-translated version was the eighth-most popular book sold in Spain in 1975.
Cemetery Dance published a special omnibus edition of The Exorcist and its sequel Legion in October 2010, signed by Blatty (ISBN 978-1587672118). A limited edition of 750 copies (with an additional 52 leatherbound copies), it is now out of print. In September 2011, The Exorcist was re-released as a 40th Anniversary Edition in paperback, hardcover a...
In 1973, the novel was adapted by Blatty for the film of the same name and directed by William Friedkin with Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Jack MacGowran, Jason Miller and Linda Blair. The screenplay for the film won Blatty an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1974 famed Japanese horror author Kazuo Umezualso created a shor...
Jan 13, 2017 · William Peter Blatty, the man who helped to revolutionize the horror genre both in print and on the big screen with his best-selling 1971 novel The Exorcist and its equally successful 1973 screen adaptation, died on January 12, only a few days after his 89th birthday.
Dec 26, 2017 · One of them was author and filmmaker William Peter Blatty. He terrified readers in 1971 with "The Exorcist," and two years later the movie version shocked and disturbed, well, pretty much...
William Peter Blatty, the author and Oscar-winning screenwriter behind the 1973 film of The Exorcist (which I hold to be the greatest movie ever made) did no such thing. He amazed, delighted, entertained and inspired me.
May 1, 1971 · William Peter Blatty was an American writer and filmmaker. He wrote the novel The Exorcist (1971) and the subsequent screenplay version for which he won an Academy Award.
