When the production ran over budget, producers Yusup Bakhshiev and Viktor Taknov decided to split an already finished 2-hour film in half to create two stand-alone features. Since there was no time to shoot any additional material, previously scrapped dialogs and sequences were brought back from the cutting-room floor to create two full-length films that were released in cinemas within a month from each other.
Anastasiya Slanevskaya is a Russian pop singer whose stage name is Slava. The song playing in the background in one of the scenes at Lisa's home is hers, called "V nebo ya slyozy ronyayu...". To prepare for the role of a soldier, Slanevskaya watched Aliens: O Resgate (1986) and Até o Limite da Honra (1997) many times. Director Mikhail Khleborodov, who met her when he was making her second music video "Poputchitsa" back in 2004, used her real name for the credits because he wanted everyone to like her and Slava already had her own reputation. According to Slanevskaya, actors don't like singers getting roles in movies but she was lucky because no one from the crew recognized her, except for Khleborodov. She thinks the male cast accepted her when Khleborodov brought them together to read the script and they saw she could swear like them when she made a mistake while reading. A few days into filming, actor Anatoliy Beliy even told her she was a great actress and asked in which theatre she played.
The primary full-scale set, a secret scientific laboratory, was built in the huge pavilions of the VILLS factory. With a total area of just under 38,000 square feet, it was the largest set built in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The decision to split the film in two parts was panned by Russian critics as "an attempt to sell one movie for the price of two" and caused an uproar among the audience. As a result, director Mikhail Khleborodov promised to release an initial single-film "director's cut" on DVD.
The film's promotional blog kept by producer Yusup Bakhshiev had to be shut down after the discussion between Bakhshiyev and discontented moviegoers got out of control.