If you own this Keanu Reeves movie on DVD or VHS, you could be sitting on a small fortune

Every so often, a movie release becomes a holy grail for collectors. Sometimes it is a limited pressing. Sometimes it is a mistake that slips through the cracks. And sometimes, as in this case, it is a legal headache that accidentally creates a relic worth hundreds of dollars.

That is exactly what happened with the original home release of “The Devil’s Advocate,” the iconic 1997 thriller starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. Shortly after its VHS and DVD debut, the film was censored due to a lawsuit. The problem for Warner Bros. was that by then, nearly half a million copies were already out in the wild.

A sculpture that caused trouble

Audiences who saw “The Devil’s Advocate” during its original theatrical run will remember the massive sculpture looming behind Al Pacino’s character in his office. Striking, unsettling, and very memorable. Too memorable, as it turned out.

The sculpture bore a strong resemblance to Ex Nihilo, a real-life work by artist Frederick Hart located at Washington National Cathedral. Hart filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros., alleging plagiarism. By the time the legal action moved forward, the movie was already playing in theaters worldwide.

Too late to pull the plug

Warner eventually reached a settlement, agreeing that future releases of the film would digitally remove the controversial sculpture. The fix was applied to later editions, but there was one major problem.

By that point, the studio had already manufactured close to 500,000 VHS and DVD copies of the uncensored version. Destroying them was not an option.

The solution was a compromise. Those original copies were distributed mainly to video rental stores, while the censored version was sold at retail later on DVD.

Why collectors are paying hundreds

Every version of “The Devil’s Advocate” released since then includes the altered scene. That includes later DVDs, Blu-ray editions, and even the director’s cut. The only way to see the film as it originally appeared is through those early VHS and DVD releases produced before the settlement.

Roughly 475,000 uncensored copies are still believed to exist, and they have become highly sought-after collector’s items. Depending on condition and format, some now sell for hundreds of dollars on the secondary market.

So if you have an old copy of “The Devil’s Advocate” gathering dust on your shelf, it might be worth a closer look. That forgotten Keanu Reeves thriller could be worth far more than you think.

In the United States, “The Devil’s Advocate” is currently available on platforms such as Prime Video and Apple TV as a rental, but only in its censored version, of course.

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