 Although the movie was a failure when first released, it had a number of cult admirers.In the mid-1980s it was often screened as a fashionable late night art movie for esoteric clubs such as the "Edinburgh Academy Cinema Society".In the American DVD release director Jean-Jacques Beineix reveals that after the expanded 3 hour DVD version director's cut of "Betty Blue" was released he approached Gaumont, the studio that produced the film, about doing the same with "The Moon in the Gutter".