The original screenplay was on the 2009 Black List, a list of the "most liked" unmade scripts in Hollywood.
In the bank scene Zeke is reading the reprint of Different Seasons by Stephen King. This collection of four short stories includes The Body (which would become the movie Stand by Me), Apt Pupil, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and The Breathing Method.
The website Movie Insider listed this movie as "in development" until 2022, without recognizing that it was released in 2017.
Reunites Rob Corddry (Kurt Bilmore) and John Michael Higgins (Judge Brad Dawkins) from multiple episodes of the TV sitcom Community (2009) where they played Alan Connor and Prof. Whitman, although they weren't in any episodes together. They were also in Rapture-Palooza (2013) together.
Early in the movie, when Reed comes back to the sheriff's car after talking to the FBI officers, he refers to them as Beavis & Butthead. Ron Livingston plays one of the FBI agents and was also in Office Space which was directed by Mike Judge who also created Breavis & Butthead.