The movie was performed on live television in black and white, and required two soundstages on the Warner Brothers studio lot. Harvey Keitel (Brigadier General Warren Black) had to run between the two stages for some of his scenes.
The computer in the command center is made up from components of a real IBM AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central, built in 1954 to protect the U.S. from Soviet bomber attack. It was the largest and heaviest computer system ever built, the full system weighed six thousand tons (twelve million pounds, or 5,443.1 metric tons), and took up an entire floor of a bomb-proof blockhouse. Components of decommissioned systems were sold for scrap and bought by film and television production companies who wanted futuristic looking computers, despite the fact they were built in the 1950s. The components used in this film were previously used in The Time Tunnel (1966), The Towering Inferno (1974), and Independence Day (1996), amongst many others.
George Clooney wanted the show broadcast in black and white both for stylistic reasons (as it was set in the 1960s), and because live broadcasting produced garish color.
Broadcast live on April 9, 2000.
The first feature-length fictional show broadcast live on CBS in 40 years.