before his eyes." The preview audience did not react well to this. In his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman characterized this as "the most violent sneak reaction of recent years ... the audience actually got up and tried to physically abuse the studio personnel present among them." "The lobby looked like Guadalcanal", recalled producer Gordon. "Which, by the way, is a salesman's dream." Flynn says Fox screened the film for psychiatrists in an attempt to learn what it was that so disturbed the audience. Recalls Flynn, They determined that it was like a symbolic castration. So, seeing it incited a (negative) reaction akin to the sneak of the original Exorcist ...Home is supposedly the place where everyone feels safest. When people are reminded that the home is vulnerable, which we all know it is, that's disturbing. Flynn says, There were several discussions about what Fox should do with Rolling Thunder -- cut it, re-edit it or what. Fox insisted on making cuts but Gordon refused and he took the film to AIP. Devane later recalled: It probably would've made a big difference if they'd actually released it properly. But when they tested it... the Mexicans set the theater on fire! They were really, really, really down on it. So then the studio backed way off, and it never got the release it would've if they'd really jumped on it and supported it. But I didn't understand how to operate in those days. I still don't know how to operate. [Laughs.] But a movie star guy would've done everything he could to force them to release it properly, you know? And Tommy [Lee Jones] and I were just starting. God, that was the first featured role I ever did. Good picture, though. It's a really good picture... You know, they tried to do the same thing to Warren Beatty with Bonnie and Clyde. But Warren was hip enough and smart enough and knew how to put enough pressure on them to get them to release that picture. And I didn't know how to do that. I didn't have any idea. AIP release Flynn says American International Pictures "distributed it, as is, without re-cutting it. It made them a fortune." For reasons still not convincingly stated, the film was released in Spain in 1982 as El expreso de Corea ("The Korean Express"), sometimes spelled in the media with a