Extras Casting Coordinator Judith Cruden described the one hundred fifty Coober Pedy local extras as the "most extraordinary bunch of characters I've ever met."
According to Rutger Hauer's autobiography, during a break in filming, he took a motorcycle ride in the outback. He ended up following a kangaroo for a bit, but then found himself lost in the desert. After a bit of tension he finally pointed his bike in the right direction, and made it back to the set.
When Coober Pedy was first scouted as a location for this movie, it reportedly apparently hadn't rained for several years, and it gave out a unique vista.
Writer and Director David Webb Peoples said of the South Australian desert town of Coober Pedy and its environment: "The deserts in the United States have been filmed a lot and have become well-known. There is nothing in the world like Coober Pedy." Peoples continues: "On our first survey of Australia, we found Coober Pedy a central exotic type of landscape that has many different surroundings and landscapes, and this has the effect of making you think you're in a totally different part of the world. An example of this is a place twenty-eight kilometers (17.4 miles) north of Coober Pedy, called 'The Breakaways', a low range of colorful exposed sandstone outcrops, once the edge of an ancient inland sea where the production shot scenes of the Juggers travelling across the desert."
Known as "The Blood of Heroes" in the U.S., but the movie original title is "The Salute of the Jugger".