John Carpenter was the films executive producer.
According to a 1980 issue of Cinefantastique magazine, it was originally intended for John Carpenter to direct the film himself in 1980 as his next film after completing Fog (1980). That same year, Debra Hill discussed the movie in an interview with the Courier Post saying, "My Western is called El Diablo and I see it as being in the Howard Hawks vein, a combination of La Prisonnière du désert (1956) and Journey to the Center of the Earth." In 1982, Hill again mentioned El Diablo, saying that she was set to produce and Carpenter would direct. However, he ultimately declined to do so, later saying he was nervous about directing a Western. The project then lay dormant for an entire decade.
DC Comics has a character named El Diablo, a teacher named Lazarus Lane who, after being struck by lighting, is nursed back to health by a Native American shaman and rides the West as El Diablo, a fighter for justice, at night.