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Academy-award winning screenwriter William Peter Blatty, best known for his novel and subsequent film adaptation of The Exorcist<\/em>, has passed away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1971, Blatty wrote The Exorcist<\/em>, which was subsequently turned into a film by Sorcerer<\/em> director William Friedkin in 1973. The Exorcist<\/em> would see Blatty receive the Academy Award for his his screenplay, whilst the film picked up Golden Globes for both writing and picture. The Exorcist<\/em> is the only horror film to-date to be nominated in the Best Picture category at the Oscars. Not only would the film relaunch the supernatural horror subgenre, it would become a landmark in film history<\/a> for its achievements in making audiences freak out.<\/p>\n In 1980, Blatty turned to directing, crafting his earlier novel Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane<\/em> into the film The Ninth Configuration<\/em> – a commercial flop despite some positive reviews, before sequels to The Exorcist<\/em> came calling. Blatty had zero involvement in the first sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic<\/em>, whilst the third film in the series, The Exorcist III<\/em>, was an adaption of his book Legion<\/em>, and roundly regarded as a failure in most respects.<\/p>\n William Peter Blatty continued to enjoy a lengthy career as a novelist, before passing away aged 89, on January 12th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Academy-award winning screenwriter William Peter Blatty, best known for his novel and subsequent film adaptation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48482,"featured_media":45182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituary"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",664,498,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty-300x225.jpeg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",640,480,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",640,480,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",664,498,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",664,498,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",664,498,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",453,340,false],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",24,18,false],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",48,36,false],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",96,72,false],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",150,113,false],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty.jpeg",300,225,false],"sow-carousel-default":["https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/William-Peter-Blatty-272x182.jpeg",272,182,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Rodney Twelftree","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/author\/rodney\/"},"category_info":"Obituary<\/a>","tag_info":"Obituary","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.fernbyfilms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/175281982_1484324782.jpg\")
Mr Blatty began writing full time after winning $10,000 in an episode of Bet Your Life<\/em>, a sum which allowed him to quit his job. His first novels include Which Way To Mecca, Jack<\/em>, and John Goldfarb Please Come Home<\/em>, before he struck up a writing partnership with Hollywood director Blake Edwards. Together with Edwards, Blatty would continue screenwriting on films such as A Shot In The Dark, Gunn,<\/em> and Darling Lili<\/em>, while flying solo he would write the scripts for Danny Kaye’s The Man From The Diner’s Club<\/em>, and Warren Beatty’s Promise Her Anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n