Deliverance (1970), which is filled with cinematic metaphors and tightly constructed around a plot of physical actions in a picturesque landscape, seemed almost destined for the successful movie treatment it received two years after publication. However, in its length, its use of typographical devices that depend on print, and its interior monologue of a blind diabetic, Alnilam seems almost deliberately uncinematic.

Nor did the failure of the book to become a popular success encourage producers to adapt it, and Alnilam has not, to date, been made into a film.