William Friedkin Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

“The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear” (Citadel), it could have called for its own exorcism. The same kind of crazed scenes were happening nationwide at almost two dozen theaters where thousands would turn out for the premiere of what was being billed as one of the most frightening horror movies ever made — and accurately so.As Segaloff puts it, when the film opened, “the bedlam began.”At the Savoy Theater in Boston, “People were running up the aisles and into the lobby, some of them making it out to the street before vomiting, while others did it en route.”“I couldn’t imagine people being affected like that.

Film director William Friedkin, who died Monday at age 87, was best known for “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” but he also directed two high-profile and controversial gay-themed movies — “The Boys in the Band” and “Cruising.”

Brent Lang Executive Editor William Petersen was a theater actor from Chicago when William Friedkin changed the course of his life. In 1984, the Oscar-winning director tapped the then-unknown performer to play Richard Chance, a Secret Service agent willing to bend rules and break laws in order to capture a shadowy counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe) in “To Live and Die in L.A.” The crime thriller was a return to form for Friedkin, who had summited the heights of the movie business with “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” only to suffer a string of disappointments. Petersen and Friedkin would later collaborate on a Showtime remake of “12 Angry Men” and two episodes of “CSI.” Friedkin died on Aug.

“The Exorcist” stars Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair are remembering just how much of a powerful force of talent the late director William Friedkin was.

Linda Blair, whose performance as the demonically possessed Regan MacNeil in William Friedkin’s iconic 1973 horror film The Exorcist, is remembering the late director as a genius, a maverick, a game changer and the man who “changed my life forever.”

DJ Casper, who created the world-famous “Cha-Cha Slide”, has died. He was 58.

Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin went back more than half a century, including their days in the Directors Company, the short-lived production entity they and Peter Bogdanovich launched in the early 1970s.

EDITOR’S NOTE: William Friedkin’s passing is a gutting experience for anyone lucky enough to have sat as he reminisced over his classic movies, with measures of regret for the recklessness, humor, and keen observations of why Hollywood’s Auteur Era gave way to the global blockbuster, and whatever it is we have today as two guilds strike seeking transparency, and residuals for writers and actors. This interview was originally published August 6, 2015 under the title ’70s Maverick Revisits A Golden Era With Tales Of Glory And Reckless Abandon. I am feeling a bit gutted by Friedkin’s passing. I looked forward to a long interview with him for his Venice-bound Showtime remake of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. After spending time with Billy and his elegant wife Sherry Lansing at Peter Bart’s 90th birthday where the back and forth between them proved the highlight of the evening, I wanted them to write a column for Deadline. On anything. None of that can happen now, and Deadline can only offer condolences to Sherry. And to Deadline readers who are Friedkin fans, a replay of this bracingly honest look at his career, done as he got a reissue of Sorcerer, the adaptation of the Georges Arnaud novel that first was filmed as 1953’s The Wages of Fear. The whole interview is presented as originally published nearly a decade ago. 

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The saga of American movies in the 1970s is now a mythology. In the first half of the decade, the movies that emerged from the New Hollywood were unprecedented in their realism, their immersion in the gritty side pockets of everyday life, their perception of the darkness hidden in the American Dream. Then, of course, came Lucas and Spielberg, who kicked off the blockbuster revolution — the transformation of movies from reality into fantasy.

The French Connection and The Exorcist has died at the age of 87.Friedkin passed away today (August 7) at home in Los Angeles. His death was confirmed by Chapman University dean Stephen Galloway, who is a friend of Friedkin’s wife Sherry Lansing.The filmmaker rose to fame in the ’70s along with Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola and Hal Ashby, who were seen as a new generation of envelope-pushing directors.

Billy Friedkin remains a uniquely unforgettable figure to his friends and colleagues — an eternal contradiction, both cantankerous yet kindly, argumentative yet thoughtful. He was a brilliant creator of popular entertainment but, to his close friends, also was brooding and cerebral.

Oscar-winning film director William Friedkin has died aged 87 his family have announced. Mr Friedkin, whose work includes the classic horror film The Exorcist and crime thriller The French Connection - died in Los Angeles today (Monday). No cause of death has yet been confirmed.

Ellen Burstyn has paid her respects to William Friedkin, the filmmaker who guided her to a second Oscar nomination with his classic 1973 horror The Exorcist.

and, has died. He was 87.

Powerhouse horror producer Jason Blum has addressed the passing of William Friedkin, the iconic filmmaker whose 1973 classic The Exorcist is the basis for a forthcoming trilogy his company Blumhouse is producing for Universal.

Refresh for updates… Horror film director Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) is among the colleagues, friends and fans paying tribute to the late William Friedkin, the great director of The Exorcist and The French Connection who died today.

The iconic filmmaker, William Friedkin, has passed away at the age of 87. One of the famous directors to spawn from the “New Hollywood” era of film is probably best known for his work on the legendary horror film, “The Exorcist.” That film was nominated for 10 Oscars after its release, including Best Director.

told the Los Angeles Times. “Winning the Academy Award [and the Directors Guild Award for 1971’s ‘The French Connection’] was an enormous honor.

Carmel Dagan Director William Friedkin, best known for his Oscar-winning “The French Connection” and blockbuster “The Exorcist,” died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 87.His death was confirmed by Chapman University dean Stephen Galloway, a friend of Friedkin’s wife Sherry Lansing.

William Friedkin, who won as Oscar for directing The French Connection, scored a nomination for The Exorcist and also helmed The Boys in the Band, To Live and Die in L.A., Rules of Engagement and others, died today in Los Angeles. He way 87.

The Exorcist: Believer – check it out below.Directed by David Gordon Green, who helmed the recent Halloween reboot trilogy, The Exorcist: Believer similarly serves as a direct sequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 original.As shown in the trailer, the connecting thread is the return of Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil, who is tracked down by concerned father Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) to help save his possessed daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum).A synopsis reads: “Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding has raised their daughter, Angela, on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.”Other confirmed cast members include Ann Dowd, Raphael Sbarge, Jennifer Nettles and Okwui Okpokwasili.The Exorcist: Believer is the first entry in a planned trilogy, with a follow-up titled The Exorcist: Deceiver scheduled to be released on April 18, 2025.The original Exorcist, based on the book by William Peter Blatty, was followed by sequels Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977 and 1990’s The Exorcist III.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Recently restored versions of William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist,” Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart” feature in the Venice Classics section of the 80th Venice Film Festival. The lineup of recently restored films in Venice Classics, which is curated by the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera in collaboration with Federico Gironi, was unveiled on Friday. “The Exorcist” is screened, 50 years after it was produced by Warner Bros., alongside Disney’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” starring Shirley Temple and directed by “the prolific and sometimes brilliant” Allan Dwan, to mark the Hollywood studios’ 100th anniversaries.

With the writers and actors on strike, well, who the hell knows what’s going on? You may not hear from any actors, writers or hell, even directors who are not doing press in solidarity. So, in a bid to still continue making things interesting for you and for us, we’re reintroducing an old Flashback Friday or Throwback Thursday feature and just calling it “Flashback”: a fun excuse to highlight old interviews, old stories, classic movie stories and more.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Christopher Storer is no slouch when it comes to orchestrating kitchen chaos, having created the hit Hulu comedy-drama “The Bear.” Now, he’ll turn his camera on “The Winter of Frankie Machine” and trade trades the tense world of short-order cooking for a mob story about a hitman who is lured out of retirement to set up a meeting between waring crime families only to turn into a target himself. It’s a mean streets saga that previously attracted attention from the likes of Martin Scorsese, who was set to make it at Paramount Pictures with Robert De Niro, only to abandon it in favor of “The Irishman”; as well as Michael Mann and William Friedkin.

EXCLUSIVE: As his series creation The Bear turned in record Season Two ratings for Hulu, Christopher Storer is set to direct at Paramount Pictures The Winter of Frankie Machine, an adaptation of the 2006 Don Winslow novel. The film will be produced by Shane Salerno and The Story Factory, and Storer will use the Brian Koppelman & David Levien draft those writers did when Martin Scorsese was going to direct Robert De Niro in the lead role.

The French Connection have taken to social media to express their anger at a scene from the film being censored without warning.Those familiar with William Friedkin’s 1971 drama, which can currently be streamed via the Criterion Channel, were surprised when a new edit approximately ten minutes into the film appeared.The scene in question involves a conversation between characters “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) and a racial slur is uttered.The sequence has been removed without a trace from the film, with the edited version cutting to the pair’s conversation mid-way through.Disney, who owns the rights to the film following its takeover of Fox in 2019, have been accused of censoring the scene in the US. On Disney+ in the UK and Canada, the film remains unedited.NME has reached out to representatives of Disney and the Criterion Channel for comment.Fans online are unhappy at the news.

Jean-Hugues Anglade became an arthouse cinema star of the ’80s and ’90s behind the potent one-two punch of international hits Betty Blue and La Femme Nikita. Playing men who loved hard and recklessly, the actor embodied onscreen a raw, alluring passion that he then upended, to powerful effect, portraying mad King Charles IX in writer-director Patrice Chéreau’s 1994 period epic Queen Margot.But a decade earlier, Anglade made his big-screen breakthrough embodying another raw, reckless lover in Chéreau’s gritty, gay, mean streets drama L’homme blessé, or The Wounded Man (★★★☆☆), earning a Most Promising Newcomer César Award nomination for his intense performance as Henri, a young man who comes of age cruising his local train station.The film — which premiered at Cannes in 1983, and had an extremely limited stateside release in 1985 — actually did win the César for its script, by Chéreau and author-activist Hervé Guibert, inspired by the street-savvy works of Jean Genet.Viewing the film now, as it arrives finally on digital home video via a brilliant, new 4K restoration courtesy of Altered Innocence and Studiocanal, other muses also spring to mind, from the slinky sailors of Rainer Fassbinder’s Querelle, released a year prior, to the pugnacious gay hustler of Wallace Potts’ sublimely sexy 1979 French erotica Le Beau Mec.Somewhere between Le Beau Mec and William Friedkin’s Cruising, we might meet Henri, looking like a sweaty, unstable young Al Pacino, as he prowls his economically depressed, French provincial town.

Naman Ramachandran U.K.-based sales and distribution outfit Blue Finch Films has boarded international sales, excluding North America, for William Shatner documentary “You Can Call Me Bill” from Legion M and Exhibit A Pictures. Written and directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, who has previously helmed documentaries such as “78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene,” “Memory: The Origins of Alien,” and “Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist,” the film had its world premiere at SXSW 2023 as part of the Documentary Spotlight section. The film is an intimate portrait of William Shatner’s personal journey across nine decades, stripping away all the masks he has worn during his storied career – most famously the Star Trek franchise – to reveal the man behind it all. The first and only feature-length documentary dedicated to Shatner’s life, career and philosophy, it delves into his most fervent passions, hopes and concerns, through a thematic distillation of his most recent autobiographical songs and a deep dive into the farthest reaches of his filmography.

EXCLUSIVE: Republic Pictures has acquired the action thriller Air Force One Down from SP Media Group, slating it for worldwide release by Paramount Global Content Distribution next year. Katherine McNamara (Walker: Independence), Ian Bohen (Yellowstone), Anthony Michael Hall (Halloween Kills), Dascha Polanco (Orange Is the New Black) and Rade Serbedzija (Mission: Impossible II) star in the pic which wrapped production in March.

Ron Faber, an Obie Award-winning stage actor whose widest fame came from a brief but crucial scene in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist, died March 26 of lung cancer. He was 90.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot points, including the ending for “The Pope’s Exorcist” currently playing in theaters. Director Julius Avery has “only seen parts” of William Friedkin’s classic “The Exorcist.” “I’m not a massive aficionado of exorcist movies,” he tells Variety. Yet despite that, his latest release, “The Pope’s Exorcist,” which is based on Gabriele Amorth’s books “An Exorcist Tells His Story” and “An Exorcist: More Stories,” follows the Vatican’s chief exorcist to Spain. Played by Russell Crowe, Father Amorth teams up with a priest, Father Esquibel (Daniel Zovatto), to investigate a young mother, Julia (Alex Essoe), and her children, who have recently become possessed by a powerful demon.

It is hard to look at any movie with “Exorcist” in its title and not immediately think of William Friedkin’s eternal 1973 Oscar-winning horror classic that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Nevertheless there have been dozens of films of various stripes that have tried to conjure their own magic in this sub-genre, but none that have managed to surpass what Friedkin and screenwriter William Peter Blatty did with that brilliant film.

Oscar-nominated Cinematographer Wilmer C. Butler, whose work included a series of landmark films such as The Conversation (1974), Jaws (1975) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), has died. He was 101. The American Society of Cinematographers confirmed Butler’s passing.

was confirmed by the American Society of Cinematographers. Along with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” for which he received his only Academy Award nomination in 1976, and the game-changing summer movie blockbuster, he also lensed films such as “The Conversation,” “Grease,” “Child’s Play,” “Anaconda,” “Frailty” and the first three “Rocky” sequels. Along with an Oscar nomination an BAFTA award both for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Butler won Primetime Emmys for “Raid on Entebbe” in 1977 and “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1984.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Republic Pictures, an historic movie label founded in 1935 and shuttered in 1967, has been revived by parent company Paramount Global. The banner will function as an acquisitions play, releasing titles acquired by Paramount Global Content Distribution. “We’ve chosen to revitalize the Republic banner given its storied history of delivering popular movies to a global audience, ” said Dan Cohen, Paramount chief content licensing officer and newly-named president of Republic Pictures. “With our best-in-class global distribution teams working to identify the best homes around the world, we aim to continue that legacy by offering audiences great entertainment across all genres.”

Jenna Ortega is evidently a fan of the horror movie.