After this film was previewed, word got back to Woody Allen that if he just changed his ending, he could have a big hit. Allen declined, saying that the ending is one of the reasons he made the film.
Jeff Daniels replaced Michael Keaton in the lead male role. After footage was shot for ten days, director Woody Allen decided it wasn't working, feeling that Keaton, despite a good performance so far, was miscast, being too contemporary for the period movie. Keaton had taken a sizable salary cut to do a film with Allen. Apparently, Keaton was to appear in another later Allen film to make up for this disappointment, but to date (2023) this has yet to occur.
Woody Allen has said more than once that this is his favorite of the movies he's made. (Later, La provocación (2005) will be his favorite).
In an interview in a Belgian magazine, Viggo Mortensen said that he was very proud to have played a small role in this movie during a difficult time of his life. When he proudly took his entire family to a movie theater to see it, he was extremely disappointed to find out that all of his scenes were cut from the final movie.