Ira Levin was reluctant to sell the rights to his book. He had only been pleased with the movie adaptation of
Rosemary's Baby (1968) out of all the attempts to film his novels. When producer
Robert Evans, who had produced
Rosemary's Baby (1968), got wind of this, he sent Levin a copy of
Roman Polanski's autobiography, with all the mentions of Evans' salvaging the film highlighted. The ploy worked and Levin sold the rights to Evans for $250,000.
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