John Calley

had a brand that was known worldwide, maybe more than any other brand in Hollywood.

So I walked in there with Frank Mancuso, Bob Pisano, Larry Gleason, John Calley, and Mike Marcus.

And together, this was the new group.

And we had to rebuild it from scratch.

So United Artists is being run by this French creditor in order to recoup the money that this guy owes them.

They bring in John Calley, who was an executive at Warner Brothers and is really close with Mike Nichols.

and is really close with the James Bond franchise.

So they bring in John Kelly.

Um, he had a, one, he had a big hit on, uh, Broadway called Generation.

Um, and he was hired by John Calley at Warner Brothers to write the script because I, the pitch was pretty out there.

The pitch was, uh, b- pretty much what the, the final movie is.

Um, uh, that the reason Regan, the Linda Blair character, was targeted for possession in the first film was because she was one of these people that was now, that were now emerging in the world that could lead us spiritually into a, a, a, a communal world mind for good.

... "Oh, guys, this is fantastic." So I was, I was just like, "Look, you know"...

And I went down the history.

I was just like, you know, in 1975, you know, John Calley hired John Boorman and they gave him the biggest budget in Warner Bros.

History to make pretty much whatever he wanted, uh, as long as it wasn't a retread of the original, which was Linda Blair's thing.