Amazing movie - Sorcerer. Bad timing. Nice interview at Vanity Fair:
Why William Friedkin Turned Down Star Wars, Only To See It Torpedo His Masterwork
In 1977, there was no director hotter in Hollywood than William Friedkin. His last two films, The French Connection and The Exorcist, were instant classics and now he was about to release what he considered his masterwork, Sorcerer. What he didn't foresee, however, was that a modestly budgeted science-fiction epic called Star Wars would destroy his beloved film and change the Hollywood landscape forever.
A reimagining of Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer stars Roy Scheider as one of four outcasts who take on a lucrative but dangerous job of transporting unstable dynamite through a South American jungle in dingy trucks. Though the film boasts solid acting and a thrilling sequence where the trucks must cross an ancient bridge -- not to mention an incredible score from Tangerine Dream -- production on the film was marred in delays and on-set conflict. Things didn't get any better when Paramount released the film a month after Star Wars, quickly becoming a casualty of the craze over George Lucas's intergalactic opera. Outside of the occasional repertory screening over the decades, Sorcerer was forgotten. Then in 2012, Friedkin sued both Paramount and Universal (which had international rights) to find who owned the film. Through that, Warner Bros. bought it and on Tuesday will release a remastered Blu-ray of the film; a select theatrical release is planned as well.
Here is the trailer for the original release:
And it's up for sale at Amazon.
Another film done in by Star Wars was the quasi biopic MacArthur. A local theater showed the film for 2 weeks then ditched it for Star Wars reruns for the rest of the year.