This thing had a budget 4 million more than Star Wars? Where did the money go? It certainly didn't show up on the screen. Aside from one very expensive prop($300k), it appears to be a low budget TV movie. It didn't even feature a really solid A-list cast.
"Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." John Wayne
It definitely didn't wind up in the finished film, that is for sure.
That being said, keep in mind that the finished film was entirely different than what was intended. There were many, many scenes shot that were cut when 20th Century Fox went in to a panic about the film (due to the success of their other film, "Star Wars" - when they looked at both side by side, they knew they had a huge problem with DA). George Peppard complained that many of the scenes critical to the story were cut, in favor of shortening the film and showing the "Landmaster" as much as possible (note Murray Hamilton's character does not say one line in the film - they filmed whole scenes where he does, and note the seeming lack of emotion from Tanner's character after Keegan was killed by the cockroaches. There was a whole fight scene where Tanner character confronts Major Denton about why he didn't save Keegan). The director, Jack Smight, was removed from the film by the studio, who finished the film without him. The "radioactive skies" were an afterthought, which delayed the release (and according to "American Cinematographer," they wound up using UCLA film students to assist in compositing the shots, which certainly explains the horrible sky effects). The film became a huge mess... and what was released was a reflection of all the behind the scenes wrangling.
"It's people..."
To cost that kind of money compared to Star wars. Every deleted scene would have had to have been some grand special effect sequence, NOT some dialogue and fight scenes. Aside from the ATV truck there is absoluetly nothing to this movie. The cockroach scene was 1950's technology(and low budget even then). The sky effect was done by film students, How much could that have cost?.
$4 million dollars less a year later, Star Wars was spectacular on every level. I think someone was cooking the books, and sending millions out the back door.
"Life's tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." John Wayne
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There are extras on the DVD that go over some of the reasons why the film ran in to trouble. There is a featurette with one producer, and the other producer does the audio commentary during the film. They both talk about the problems at length.
In a nutshell - and in their own words - they were not experienced film producers at the time. They sold 20th Century Fox a package deal that included "Damnation Alley" (which would be the first film out of the box), and they got in over their heads... especially with the special effects work. In fact, the first round of special effects for the film were unusable, and they had to re-do most of the effects. The sky effects did not work as well as they would have liked them to work, and they took a long time to do. To say nothing about the cockroaches (which one producer discusses in detail).
$17,000,000 can be burned through in a hurry when things start going wrong.
"It's people..."