The Portable Door, the first book in Tom Holt's J.W. Wells & Co. series. Publication Order of J. W. Wells & Co. Books all eight books: The Portable Door (2003), In Your Dreams (2004), Earth, Air, Fire and Custard (2005), You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps (2006), The Better Mousetrap (2008), May Contain Traces of Magic (2009), Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages (2011), The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse (2023).
The firm J. W. Wells & Co. was created by W.S. Gilbert and appeared in the first full length Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Sorcerer in 1877, based on Gilbert's own short story published the year before. The chairman of J. W. Wells & Co. is John Wellington Wells, a professional sorcerer for hire who is employed by the hero of the opera to create a love potion that causes whoever takes it to fall in love with the first person they see. In a way it's the film's homage to the kind of topsy-turvy plots that W. S. Gilbert so successfully wrote.
Guy Pearce was originally set to play Dennis Tanner, but was forced to pull out of the project because of scheduling conflicts with Mémoire meurtrière (2022). Sam Neill replaced him.
A number of scenes are filmed in and around Brisbane CBD, for example, the J. W. Wells office building is on Queen Street.
There is a post and an end credit scene.