Reportedly, Gene Hackman's salary for this movie has been estimated at being between 1.25 and 1.5 million dollars. According to Mark Litwak's 1986 book, "Reel Power: The Struggle for Influence and Success in the New Hollywood", talent agent Sue Mengers said that "it was almost obscene for him not to do the film" with the amount of money he was being offered.
This movie originally had a ten million dollar budget with a twelve week shooting schedule. This blew out to a twenty-two million dollar budget and a twenty week shooting schedule.
Director Stanley Donen had such a hard time filming the boat sequences that he vowed to never work with boats again.
Before this movie, Liza Minnelli had been asking director Stanley Donen for many years whether they could do a movie together.