<Tr> <Th> Budget </Th> <Td> $2 million </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $46.1 million </Td> </Tr> <P> Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman, and starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox, with the latter two making their feature film debuts . The film is based on the 1970 novel of the same name by American author James Dickey, who has a small role in the film as the Sheriff . The screenplay was written by Dickey and an uncredited Boorman . It was a critical success, earning three Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe nominations . </P> <P> Widely acclaimed as a landmark picture, the film is noted both for the music scene near the beginning, with one of the city men playing "Dueling Banjos" on guitar with a banjo - playing country boy, that sets the tone for what lies ahead--a trip into unknown and potentially dangerous wilderness--and for its visceral and notorious male rape scene . In 2008, Deliverance was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". </P>

Was the movie deliverance based on a book