Lewis Gilbert made this smaller, more intimate film after working back-to-back on two big budget extravaganzas - You Only Live Twice (1967) and The Adventurers (1970).
At first, Lewis Gilbert wanted to make an adaptation of "The Blue Lagoon" after the success of Franco Zeffirelli's version of William Shakespeare's रोमियो और जूलियट (1968), but after an agreement with the estate of Henry De Vere Stacpoole could not be reached, he made this film, based loosely on Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's "Paul and Virginia," the story of which Stacpoole took inspiration for "The Blue Lagoon."