Erich Maria Remarque's book was inspired by his own experiences as a German soldier in World War I. Remarque fought in the trenches and the novel is notable for its realistic depiction of the horrors of battle, and the trouble soldiers face during and even after the fighting.
It took writers Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell 16 years to get this movie made. They acquired an option on the film rights for the book in 2006, and struggled to get it made, but also to find money to renew the option. In a desperate move, Paterson entered XTERRA triathlons in 2011 to try to get the top prize of $20,000 and won, which enabled her to renew the option, which cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per year. Over the years, she managed to fund the renewals of the option by winning five triathlon world championships. Paterson and Stokell estimate they spent around $200,000 over 16 years to maintain the option.
This is the third rendition of this story. The other two are the renowned Academy Award-winning Best Picture version, Lewis Milestone's Im Westen nichts Neues (1930), and the lesser-known version by Delbert Mann, Im Westen nichts Neues (1979). This is also said to be the most expensive German film in the history of Netflix.
The director used a military area and an airfield north of Prague to film the battlefield. It was a huge mud field, the size of 10 football fields.
The French tanks shown are Saint-Chamonds. Between 350 and 400 were produced between April 1917 and July 1918. The Saint-Chamond weighed 23 tonnes, had a theoretical top speed of 7.5 mph (almost never achieved in action) and was armed with a 75mm heavy gun. It was widely disliked by its operators because of its poor trench-crossing ability and because its heavy nose often caused it to bog down. By the end of the war it had been all but phased out, to be replaced by the Renault FT. One surviving Saint-Chamond is in a museum in France.