Martin van Waardenberg (Ome Cor) and Floortje van Waardenberg (his daughter Carola) are also father/daughter in real life. Floortje is even a hair dresser in real life. Van Waardenberg's youngest daughter Mina van Waardenberg plays the younger version of Carola.
Part of this movie's box office was donated to the Sophia Children's Hospital in Rotterdam, who had missed out on many of their normal donations that year because their charity gala diner had been canceled due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Due to this, Martin van Waardenberg was able to use his network to recruit no less than 45 prominent Dutch acquaintances (including the real mayor of Rotterdam) who were enthusiastic to help out and play cameos in this movie, and were all available due to the lockdown anyway. Fellow comedian Bert Visscher reportedly had no problem driving from Groningen to Rotterdam twice to shoot his two brief scenes.
Directors Martin van Waardenberg and Peter Verhage had planned to shoot for a month, but due to all the improvisation, they added more and more scenes to the script. Not all the actors or locations were available at the same time, so the entire movie was shot over a period of 18 months. The scene at the bridge with Guus Meeuwis as bridge guard had to be done in one attempt, and was planned like a military operation, but fortunately, the weather was favorable that day.
Martin van Waardenberg wanted to do the movie on his own accord to pass the time during the COVID-19 lockdown, without having to rely on external funding (which had delayed his previous project De marathon (2012) for 12 years). The film was shot on a shoestring budget with one camera, one drone, one camera operator without focus puller, no catering, make-up artists, costume department, financial backup or assistants, and by enlisting the help of friends and family. During the end credits, the lighting is credited as "well, sometimes", and art direction as "not".
Martin van Waardenberg started writing the movie when all his projects and stage performances were halted during the COVID-19 lockdown. He finished the screenplay in record time, although he admitted that it was no more than a draft version, as the movie was mostly improvised. He contacted his friend Peter Verhage, for whom he had narrated some corporate videos for several harbor companies (the inspiration for the character of Ome Cor came from that), and asked him to direct. He also called colleague Frank Lammers for a part, and literally the next day, they were shooting a scene with him. Verhage was able to use his network to secure filming locations that are normally off-limits, such as the Van Brienenoord Bridge, De Schie Penitentiary, Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo and soccer stadium De Kuip.