Oliver Reed was originally cast as Mordechai Fingers. He was fired after getting in a bar fight and mooning at Geena Davis.
When Renny Harlin fired the chief camera operator following a dispute, more than two dozen crew members quit.
Carolco Pictures, which financed the film, filed for bankruptcy six weeks before it reached theaters.
Several years later, Matthew Modine explained some of the reasons why the film's budget spiraled out-of-control. Among other things, dozens of cases of V8 vegetable juice were shipped out to Malta, expressly for Renny Harlin and Geena Davis. Towards the end of the shoot, an entire room of V8 was left, so it was served to everybody. Another reason for the high costs was that every scene had three cameras in constant use, resulting in yards and yards of film used for every shot.