Greta Scacchi's breakthrough role in Heat and Dust (1983) earned her a reputation for being relaxed about on-screen nudity. She had stripped down for scenes in Se presume inocente (1990) and White Mischief (1987), among others, until she reached the edge of her tolerance with this movie. "There I was, in the missionary position," she would later say, "with the fourth famous actor in six months on top of me--Harrison Ford, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jimmy Smits, now Tom Berenger--and I'm thinking, 'I just can't do this anymore'."
The car crash was filmed using a custom-built "gun" with a compressed-gas thrust of 1,400 pounds, which sent a Mercedes 560SL sailing 200 feet off a cliff before it fell more than 500 feet. Recording the action were six cameras, several manned by rope-secured technicians experienced in climbing rock faces to get into pivotal positions. Camera crews lower down the cliff had to be put in place with their equipment by a heavy-duty helicopter capable of lifting 2,000 lbs.
Publicity for the picture, including the review in the show-business trade paper "Variety", often mistakenly attributed this 1991 movie as being the first Hollywood production directed by German director Wolfgang Petersen, but this is not the case; Petersen had directed around six years earlier Enemigo mío (1985) for 20th Century-Fox, although it was filmed almost entirely in Germany.
"The Plastic Nightmare", the novel by Richard Neely upon which this film is based, was published in 1969.