 This film was originally meant to have been an adaptation of the  stage play by Harry Kurnitz (qv). Walter Matthau (qv) and  Peter Sellers (qv) were to have been the detectives, but Sellers  did not like how things were going and wanted out. United Artists  brought in Blake Edwards (qv) to keep Sellers on the project.  Edwards looked at the script and thought that it might be better  suited to the character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, and rewrote  the entire script with a young William Peter Blatty (qv). It was  released only three months after the original  _Pink Panther, The (1963)_ (qv).