William Friedkin had two massive hit movies behind him; The French Connection and The Exorcist, so he could do any movie he wanted. He chose to remake the French movie Wages of Fear about four fugitives hiding out in a small, poor town on a Puerto Rican Island. The four men are hired to drive two trucks, loaded with nitroglycerin, 200 miles through mountainous, jungle roads.   

The script, titled The Sorcerer, was written for Steve McQueen who said, “This is the best script I’ve ever read.” He was newly married to Ali MacGraw,  so he asked Friedkin, “Can you make it in America, so I can be with Ali?”

“No way,” said Friedkin.

“Then, can you give Ali a part?”

“There's no American women in the story.”

“Can Ali be an Associate Producer?”

“No, that won’t work.”

McQueen bowed out and Friedkin hired Jaws star Roy Scheider. Friedkin and the cast braved many hardships on the film shot in the Dominican Republic, including having a truck accidently tip off a suspension bridge into the water with Friedkin in it. The resultant movie bombed at the box office after a week and was replaced by the premier of Star Wars.

The title, The Sorcerer, lead The Exorcist fans to think it was another supernatural thriller and were dumbstruck when they ended up in a jungle drama.

Some people left the theater in the first ten minutes because the foreign locations, sub-titles, and no American actors in the first scenes, made them think it was a foreign movie.

Also, the story was a downbeat, slowly paced drama punctuated with some action. Or just the fact that the world went Star Wars crazy and wanted nothing to do with driving two trucks though jungle mountains. 

Now Friedkin regrets his decision to not use Steve McQueen saying, “Steve’s face is worth more than all the mountains in the world.”

Indeed, not only could he have had McQueen, but also Ali MacGraw, if he had written in a woman’s part. She was hot after making Love Story and The Getaway where she first met McQueen making headlines because of her being married to the studio heard Robert Evans.

With those two names on the poster, the movie would have been a hit or at least gotten its money back and been more valuable in the future DVD market.

Me? I'm a big fan of the movie, but if you watch it, you can see where most of it could have been shot in America with some 2nd unit shots in Mexico. Indeed, one sequence was finally shot in America. Or with MacGraw in the movie, the two stars would have shot on location.

Today, the The Sorcerer has a cult following with Quentin Tarantino listing it as his #8 favorite movie. Now on Blu-Ray, one can only imagine the movie with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw in it, and seriously lament.

Below link: Siskel & Ebert talk about Sorcerer.