Gian Luigi Polidoro registered the title Die Degenerierten (1969) for his movie first. Federico Fellini fought to use the title for his movie but lost the case. Subsequently the title was changed to Fellini Satyricon.
The Latin phrase recited by the woman about to commit suicide was: "Animula, vagula, blandula, hospes comesque corporis", the emperor Hadrian's supposed dying words. Hadrian died 72 years after Petronius, the author of "Satyricon".
United Artists paid more than $1 million for the distribution rights to Gian Luigi Polidoro's Die Degenerierten (1969) to keep it off the market until after the release of this film.
When asked why both the leading roles were played by foreign actors and not Italians, Federico Fellini replied, "Because there are no Italian homosexuals."
According to an episode of the NPR-WNYC radio program "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" (broadcast January 15, 2011), future fitness guru Richard Simmons is in this film. An American student living in Rome in the late 1960's, he was cast as an obese nobleman in the banquet scene.