 Because of a phenomenal success of the book, 20th Century Fox was  sure that this was going to be a huge hit at the box office. At the  same time there were such low expectations surrounding  _Star Wars (1977)_ (qv) that most theaters refused to book the film.  So the distributor at Fox came up with the idea of a package deal:  telling theater chains that if they wanted this movie they had to  book Star Wars first. This movie went on to become a box office dud  while Star Wars went on to become one of the most successful films  of all time.