(SeaPRwire) –
This isn’t nostalgia marketing or a heritage festival stunt. A 1971 baroque drama built on the real 1634 Loudun witch trials just outperformed newer theatrical releases. Warner Bros. Clockwork, a new sub-label run by ex-NEON executives Spencer Collantes and Christian Parkes, skipped the paid promotional push. They restored two censored sequences and enlisted a lifelong champion of the film as its spokesperson. The audience was trusted to show up on merit alone. Last weekend’s result: $1.74 million in limited opening, outpacing both Primetime and Digger.
The 4K restoration returns two scenes stripped from the 1971 cut. The infamous ‘Rape of Christ’ shows a group of nuns stripping nude and assaulting a statue of Jesus. A second scene has Sister Jeanne of the Angels, played by Vanessa Redgrave, receiving a charred femur from Urban Grandier. Both sequences were cut by the British Board of Film Censors and by the studio itself. Production designer Derek Jarman’s baroque visuals anchor the restored cut. Editor Michael Bradsell re-added material from a 2004 special screening.
The film’s path from obscurity to box office curiosity runs through one man’s decades-long fixation. Mark Kermode saw The Devils in 1979 on a midnight double bill with The Exorcist. The screening was at the Phoenix in East Finchley, North London. He was later assigned by Sight and Sound to interview Ken Russell for a censorship issue. Russell, who died in 2011, opened up about the film’s mutilated state. Editor Bradsell had self-censored for a 2004 special screening. Kermode’s own archival obsession traced the excised footage back to a mislabeled shipping log at Warner Bros. in the U.K.
In an exhibition market built on fresh IP and franchises, a 55-year-old cult drama is competing head-to-head with contemporary releases. Clockwork isn’t running paid digital marketing. Their play is simple. They restore what was stolen and hand it back to audiences who already want it. Reputation does the legwork. Kermode has been the film’s public voice since Cannes 2026. He screened it at the New York Film Festival. The audience found their way in. $1.74 million from a limited release is not blockbuster money. But it’s money that didn’t require a six-figure marketing spend.
The archival treasure hunt is no longer Kermode’s personal quirk. A Warner Bros. U.K. contact labeled a shipping tin ‘C cut 89.’ Kermode’s wife was at Mothercare buying nappies when the phone rang. The contact said there were nuns and a crucifix on the first frames. The BBFC secretary at the time was John Trevelyan. He told Russell the ‘Rape of Christ’ had to come out entirely. Some examiners thought the film should be rejected outright. Trevelyan settled for cuts. The studio also wanted material removed. The film lost ground from both sides before it ever reached theaters.
Streamers and studios that bet everything on algorithmic churn and quarterly IP velocity are about to discover that a 55-year-old baroque drama with restored explicit sequences and zero paid acquisition spending can outperform three of their new theatrical releases on opening weekend, because the audience doesn’t need a $60 million marketing campaign to find a film that respects them enough to show up uncut, unspun, and available to the cinephiles who’ve been waiting decades for someone to hand it back.