The film was initially given an X rating by the MPAA due to its graphic violence. Due to this, significant material was removed from Fred's death scene, the sequence where Mars and Pluto attack the trailer, and the last confrontation with Papa Jupiter. Out of one hundred possible titles for the film, The Hills Have Eyes was chosen. It tested well with audiences, though Craven did not like it. Prints of the film were made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Release Marketing Locke told the Los Angeles Times that he expected the film's marketing campaign to cost twice or thrice the film's budget. Advertisements for The Hills Have Eyes claimed that a copy of the film had been added to the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art; in actuality, the copy of the film had been added to the museum's "study" collection rather than its more prestigious permanent collection. One of the museum's curators told the Los Angeles Times that he would prefer that the film's advertisements not mention the museum. Box office The film premiered on July 22, 1977, in Tucson, Arizona, where it earned $2 million by October 1977, the same month the film gained a wider release. The Hills Have Eyes ultimately earned $25 million, and was a greater box office success than The Last House on the Left. Craven noted that the film managed to break box office records at some of the individual theaters that it opened in. The film's gross was impeded by the financial success of the Burt Reynolds film Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Locke characterized the film as neither a huge hit nor a box-office bomb, and was pleased with the amount of money it generated. Critical response Contemporaneous The staff of Variety called The Hills Have Eyes "a satisfying piece of pulp," adding that "Gratifying aspects [of the film] are Craven's businesslike plotting and pacy cutting, and a script which takes more trouble over the stock characters than it needs. There are plenty of laughs, in the dialog and in the story's disarming twists." In his review of Craven's later film Swamp Thing (1982), Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times criticized the film for being too "decadent" for his taste. Tim Pulleine of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that the film's story "had promise" but was "never fused into an effective narrative pattern, let alone an allegorical one." Tim