John Wayne had long been a Hollywood symbol of heroism, the very example of courage. By the mid 1970's, however, he had become both socially and politically irrelevant. Seen as a relic of a distant past, he wasn't getting many film offers and often applied his own sense of morality when evaluating film offers. Since there were a dearth of hero roles featuring authority figures chastising dirty hippies, Wayne received few film that caught his attention. One major role that had been offered to him first was Dirty Harry. He turned it down as being too violent but later regretted the decision. The truth was that Mr. Wayne was too old for the role but had gotten the offer for his marquee value. The film probably wouldn't have been as successful with Mr. Wayne in it.
So when Steve McQueen turned down the Bullitt retread McQ and it was offered to John, Mr. Wayne eagerly accepted it. He was also way too old to play this character, but he went into it full steam ahead. Without the more charismatic Steve McQueen in the film, the script had to be re-written to accommodate the much older John Wayne. A movie tie-in book, written from the original script, showed a glimmer of what the film would have been like had the younger McQueen accepted the role. Lacking a hotter star, Warner Brothers was only able to assemble a cast that was more reminiscent of a Barnaby Jones rerun than a major motion picture. Eddie Albert, Clu Gulager and Colleen Dewhurst joined John Wayne in the affable yet dated picture. While obviously setting up a sequel, the film did not earn enough money to justify making one.
