Producer Martin Ransohoff and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in 1966 acquired the rights to James Clavell's source "Tai-Pan" novel for US $500,000. The movie was then announced by MGM in 1967-68 to star Patrick McGoohan to play Dirk Struan, to be directed by Michael Anderson, with source novelist Clavell writing the screenplay. The picture was originally budgeted to cost US $26 million which was then reduced to US $20 million. The project sat around stagnant for a time in development hell. However, after severe operating losses, the epic was one of a number of expensive projects the new management at the MGM studio dropped as being too costly. The project and the development of the movie at MGM was in the end canceled by executive James T. Aubrey.
Executive Producer Dino De Laurentiis after the picture was completed declared that it was an error making the movie in China.
Reportedly, filming in China was gravely problematic for the production due to Labour Boards and the bureaucracy of the Chinese Government.
In 1980, James Bond star Roger Moore agreed to play the lead role of Dirk Struan and was attached to the project for a brief time, even going as far as to start to grow a beard for the part. This was around the time between Moore's Bond movies of Moonraker (1979) and Rien que pour vos yeux (1981). Like Shogun (1980), it was to be a television mini-series, with John Guillermin touted as being its director. However, in the end, this proposed version of "Tai-Pan" fell through due to financing problems and went into turnaround as the earlier late 1960s and 1970s developments had as well. Moore said around the time: "If it's offered to me again I'll do it. Quite frankly, it's one of the best scripts I've ever read".
In the late-1970s, Georges-Alain Vuille acquired the rights to the James Clavell source novel with director Richard Fleischer attached to direct and George MacDonald Fraser hired to write the screenplay. After the film script was approved, Fraser was then asked to also pen a sequel. Fraser and Fleischer originally planned to have Sean Connery as the hero and George C. Scott as the villain of the piece. Neither was, however, signed. Star Steve McQueen agreed to play the hero for a then-record US $10 million and was paid an advance of US $1 million. When the producers were unable to pay the second installment on time, McQueen dropped out of the film, keeping the US $1 million he had already been paid.