Hollywood studios have a particular knack for greenlighting films with similar themes at the same time. In 1989, four fantasy or horror films produced in the United States took place underwater (“DeepStar Six”, “Leviathan”, “The Abyss” and “Lords of the Deep”). In 1997, we were offered two films on the volcano (“Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano”), and the following year we had two films in which Earth faces an extinction event caused by a big old space rock (“Deep Impact” and “Armageddon”).
In 1974, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox nearly put two disaster films set in a burning skyscraper into production. When WB acquired the rights to Richard Martin Stern’s novel “The Tower,” producer Irwin Allen, the industry’s so-called “Master of Disaster,” convinced his studio, 20th Century Fox, to buy Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson’s incredibly similar “The Glass Inferno.” Both films were expected to have large budgets, which increased studios’ fears that they could cancel each other out at the box office. Aware of these concerns, Allen proposed that he adapts the two novels under the title “The Towering Inferno”, which would be a WB-Fox co-production. The costs would be split equally, with Fox distributing the film domestically, while WB would handle the international release and television rights.
This paved the way for Allen to make a mega-film with a then-extravagant budget of $14 million. With that kind of money, he could chase down some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and delight audiences with a lavish visual spectacle. If the production went well on a technical level, director John Guillermin had to deal with diva behavior from his two stars.
Paul Newman had fiery words for Steve McQueen
When principal photography began, one might have hoped that Paul Newman (as Doug Roberts, the tower’s architect) and Steve McQueen (as San Francisco Fire Chief Michael O’Hallorhan) would become closer due to their shared love of auto racing. This was not to be the case. McQueen, who had a reputation for defying his co-stars who could get more screen time than him (he caused all kinds of trouble for Yul Brynner on the set of “The Magnificent Seven”, for example), pestered screenwriter Sterling Silliphant to give him as many lines as Newman. When Newman found out what McQueen was doing, he chastised him for his “chicken” scheming.
Fortunately, this argument did not derail production. “The Towering Inferno” was released on December 16, 1974 to mostly good reviews and a torrid box office. The film grossed $203.3 million worldwide and earned eight Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and the first Best Supporting Actor nomination for the legendary Fred Astaire). Clearly, Allen’s idea of a joint production paid off for both studios… even if Newman and McQueen would never work together again.
