1970s in film was far less successful. "The Towering Inferno" teamed Steve McQueen and Paul Newman against a fire in a San Francisco skyscraper. The film cost a whopping $14 million to produce (expensive for its time), and won Academy Awards for Cinematography, Film Editing, and Best Original Song. The same year, the epic "Earthquake" featured questionable effects (camera shake and models) to achieve a destructive 9.9 earthquake in Los Angeles. Despite this, the film was one of the most successful of its time, earning $80 million at box office. By the late 1970s, the novelty had worn off and the disasters had
Earthquake (1974 film) film's enormous box office receipts, Universal Studios put pre-production on "Earthquake" back into high gear, hiring writer George Fox to continue work with Puzo's first draft. Fox was principally a magazine writer and had never written a screenplay before, so director Mark Robson worked with him to narrow the scope of the script down to fit into the budgetary constraints. After eleven drafts, "Earthquake" went before the cameras in February 1974. While "The Towering Inferno" featured a larger "all star" cast, Universal was able to land Charlton Heston in the lead role. Rounding out the top billing were Ava Gardner,