 Ira Levin was reluctant to sell the rights to his book. He had only  been pleased with the movie adaptation of "Rosemarys Baby" (1968)  out of all the attempts to film his novels. When producer Robert  Evans, who had produced "Rosemarys Baby", got wind of this, he sent  Levin a copy of Roman Polanskis autobiography, with all the  mentions of Evans salvaging the film highlighted. The ploy worked  and Levin sold the rights to Evans for $250,000.