Novarro followed Ingram's advice and rejected the role. Lubitsch later said working with Pickford was a delight. Pickford also enjoyed working with Lubitsch, and at first contracted him to make three more movies with her. Upon its release, the film was met with success, earning over $1 million. For reasons unknown, Pickford decided the film was a failure. While she carefully preserved most of her filmography, she allowed "Rosita" to decay, save for the film's fourth reel, and no prints of the film were thought to exist. However, in the 1960s a nitrate print was discovered in the Russian film archives and repatriated by The Museum of Modern Art. A safety preservation negative was made from the nitrate print, but no further work was done on the film. Starting in 2016, work restoring the film began as recent breakthroughs in digital restoration made it possible to reclaim much of the film's severely damaged images. In 2017, the restoration of the film held its world premiere at the 74th Venice International Film Festival.