According to extensive production details provided in the DVD release of the film, when Julie Andrews signed on to star in "The Sound of Music", her contract with Twentieth Century-Fox was a two-picture deal. As "The Sound of Music" neared completion, director Robert Wise and producer Saul Chaplin had grown so fond of her that they wanted to make sure that their team would be the one to pick up the studio's option for the other picture "before anybody else got to her first".