Release was postponed for three weeks when star Mariah Carey was hospitalized as a result of an "emotional and physical breakdown." In the April 25, 2018 issue of People, Carey revealed that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while she was hospitalized.
Mariah Carey started shopping her film idea to studios in 1997. She started writing songs for the soundtrack before it got a green light. Carey admits that when the project was approved in 2000, she found songs for the movie that she'd written and forgotten about. She was only supposed to do six songs, but many collaborations with producers, writers, and artists, including Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Rick James, led to her writing the entire soundtrack. She also worked on a song with Prince, but they missed the deadline.
Was one of the last major film releases to feature the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, three times in the film, before they were destroyed.
Instead of releasing the film on DVD, 20th Century Fox surrendered the rights to Columbia Pictures, which distributed the film outside the U.S. It made just over $5 million (US) worldwide, and was universally panned by critics. The soundtrack CD was the weakest-selling album in Mariah Carey's career, prompting Virgin Records/EMI to sever their ties with her, along with David Bowie, whose album Toy was shelved by the label for not helping them recoup the losses they suffered from Glitter's flop (along with possible copyright issues regarding the songs included).
During filming, tracks using backup singer Mary Ann Tatum were used in place of Mariah Carey's voice to avoid bootlegging. Carey recorded her vocals close to the release date of the soundtrack, and all lead vocals used in the film are hers.