 After buying the rights to the novel, producer  Frank P. Rosenberg (qv) worked on the first draft of the script  together with Rod Serling (qv). Sam Peckinpah (qv) was then  hired to rewrite it. A complex deal was then made where money  earlier spent attempting to develop Louis LAmour (qv)s novel "To  Tame a Land" into a film was allocated for accounting purposes to  this film, and Stanley Kubrick (qv) was hired as director. Kubrick  fired Peckinpah and brought in Calder Willingham (qv) for more  rewriting, but later Rosenberg fired him and hired  Guy Trosper (qv) instead.