Editing The Towering Inferno (section)

===Development===
In April 1973, it was announced that [[Warner Bros.]] production chief [[John Calley]] paid $350,000 for the rights to [[Richard Martin Stern]]'s ''[[The Tower (Stern novel)|The Tower]]'', prior to that book's publication.<ref>Son of 'Seagull'?: Son of 'Seagull'? AFTER "GODSPELL" SELECTED SHORTS I DISMEMBER MAMA?
By A. H. WEILER. New York Times 1 Apr 1973: 163.</ref><ref>Movies Vie, in 6 Figures, for Best Sellers: A Homespun Pair Time-Proven Subjects
By ERIC PACE. New York Times 11 July 1973: 47.</ref> This amount was larger than originally reported. The book had been the subject of a bidding war between Warner Bros., [[20th Century Fox]] and [[Columbia Pictures]]; Columbia dropped out when the price reached $200,000 and Warner Bros. offered $390,000. [[Irwin Allen]], who recently had a big success with a disaster movie, ''[[The Poseidon Adventure (1972 film)|The Poseidon Adventure]]'', was at Fox, and persuaded that studio to make a higher offer when the book was sold to Warner Bros.<ref name="new">A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Fire
By ALJEAN HARMETZ. New York Times 18 Nov 1973: 157.</ref>

Eight weeks later, Fox was submitted a novel, [[Thomas N. Scortia]] and [[Frank M. Robinson]]'s ''[[The Glass Inferno]]'', which was published the following year, and which Allen says had "the same sort of characters, the same locale, the same story, the same conclusion". They bought the novel for a reported fee of $400,000.<ref name="new"/>

Allen was concerned that two films about a tall building on fire might cannibalize each other, remembering what happened in the 1960s when rival biopics about [[Oscar Wilde]] (with ''[[Oscar Wilde (film)|Oscar Wilde]]'' and ''[[The Trials of Oscar Wilde]]'' in 1960) and [[Jean Harlow]] (with Magna Media Distribution's ''[[Harlow (Magna film)|Harlow]]'' and [[Paramount Pictures]]'s ''[[Harlow (Paramount film)|Harlow]]'' in 1965) were released.<ref name="new"/> He convinced executives at both studios to join forces to make a single film on the subject. The studios issued a joint press release announcing the single film collaboration in October 1973.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/towering-inferno/review/|title=The Towering Inferno|last=Collins|first=Andrew|date=2000-01-01|website=Empire|language=en|access-date=2019-03-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190323141346/https://www.empireonline.com/movies/towering-inferno/review/|archive-date=March 23, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> Stirling Silliphant, who had written ''The Poseidon Adventure'', would write the script and Allen would produce.<ref>Major Firms Will Produce Film Jointly
Los Angeles Times 10 Oct 1973: f15.</ref> It was decided to split costs equally between the studios, but the film would be made at Fox, where Allen was based. Fox would distribute in the United States and Canada, and Warner Bros. outside those territories. Warner Bros. also handled the worldwide television distribution rights. Incidents and character names were taken from both novels.<ref name="new"/>

The total cost for the film was US$14,300,000.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thetoweringinferno.info/prod.html|title=production|website=www.thetoweringinferno.info|access-date=May 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206012955/http://www.thetoweringinferno.info/prod.html|archive-date=February 6, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>