The Towering Inferno The Towering Inferno The Towering Inferno is a 1974 American drama disaster film produced by Irwin Allen featuring an all-star cast led by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. The picture was directed by John Guillermin. A co-production between 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., it was the first film to be a joint venture by two major Hollywood studios. It was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from a pair of novels, "The Tower" by Richard Martin Stern and "The Glass Inferno" by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. The film earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture
Earthquake (1974 film) "The Towering Inferno" ranking 8th, "Airport" 14th, "The Poseidon Adventure" 16th and "Earthquake" 20th. These successes ensured the flood of similar films throughout the decade. Earthquake eventually grossed nearly $80,000,000 ($349,858,800 adjusted for inflation in 2015 dollars). At its release, critics generally acknowledged the special effects in "Earthquake" while discounting other aspects. Without either panning or praising the film, Nora Sayre of the "New York Times" wrote that it was an improvement on "Airport '75" and observed, "The impulse to shout advice to the screen—get out! go away! don't enter that building—is quite powerful, so this does rank as a